Posted by:
Sentinel Staff
7/1/2009 9:11:58 AM
July 20 will mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, and The Sentinel will mark the occasion with a special report. We are asking readers to share their memories of that historic moment. Where were you, and what do you remember most? We may include some of your reflections in our coverage.
7/18/2009 11:23:37 AM
I was at the local bar watching TV.
The talk was not about the moon landing but centered on an incident that happened the day before when two amateur fishermen had seen a vehicle overturned in the water on Chappaquiddick island.
They notified the inhabitants of the nearest cottage, who called the authorities at around 8:20 am. A diver was sent down and discovered the body of Mary Jo Kopechne. Police checked the car's license plate and saw that it was registered to Senator Ted Kennedy.
7/17/2009 4:44:15 PM
I was at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. We watched on a small TV in a diner.
Sentinel Staff
7/13/2009 2:03:00 PM
I served 40 years in Navy Air Reserve, retired in 1983 as master chief.
I along with 2 other chiefs were sitting in the lounge of a hotel in SEVILLE SPAIN watching the TV coverage on the day of the very first landing on the moon.
Spain went wild on that day. I still have a copy of a Seville newspaper which had pictures and had the headline "LOS HOMBRES EN LA LUNA".
Charles Tousley
Keene, NH 03431
7/13/2009 1:43:37 PM
I was in the Navy stationed in Pensacola FL and serving as a volunteer for the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute. We served as human guinea pigs for experiments in the Space Program. I remember being upstairs in the barracks and how crazy everyone went. What a great day for the USA!!!!
7/12/2009 10:59:30 PM
I was working for Grumman Aircraft, Long Island, NY the builder of the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module). My wife and I were transferred to the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas in December 1966. I and a team of Electronic Technicians along with Engineers and astronauts tested the LEM in a vacuum chamber for over 3 1/2 years. On July 20th, 1969 in a little town called Friendswood, Texas my wife and I and our 19 month old first born son, Matthew, watched the landing with pride knowing that all the hours spent testing for success was paying off.
7/9/2009 1:06:47 PM
I was living then on Long Island and on that historic day I was celebrating my 18th birthday with family and friends.
We all stayed very close to the television. I remember the adults were downstairs watching it and I was upstairs in my room with my cousins watching it on my TV. Needless to say, that July 20th was very special to me - what a memorable birthday present. Four months after the lunar landing, I was fortunate to be employed at Grumman Aerospace Corp. in Bethpage and worked in accounting administration on the lunar program. Grumman was the defense contractor that built the lunar excursion modules for the Apollo missions - the LEM was the craft that brought home safely the crew of Apollo 13. I had the opportunity to meet and shake the hands of the crew of the Apollo 13 mission when they paid us a visit at Grumman to thank us for a "job well done." It was an exciting time!
7/8/2009 10:35:05 AM
My father worked for the Walter Kidde company - most famous for making fire extinguishers however, they had a contract to make some of the valves and mechanical pieces for NASA. He worked on the balancer valves that went to the moon. I remember the whole family watching on our black and white TV on that day. And going to school the next morning with an autographed photo of JFK that was given to my father in appreciation. As a 10 year old kid - I thought it meant that my father was going to get to go to the moon also. It was an historical event for the nation, but for my family personally as well.
7/6/2009 8:32:50 AM
Merritt Island, Florida, July 16, 1969 -- We stood on my aunt's front lawn, my mother and brother and I, as Apollo 11 took off for the moon. We were 25 miles from the launch site and the rocket was only a white speck, but with a mammoth plume of exhaust behind it. The noise drowned out any conversation. Four days later I was on the other side of the country. I had just spent most of the afternoon enjoying the sand and sun at Huntington Beach. Across the highway, the recreation center at the trailer park on Route 1 had a TV mounted up in a corner of the room. Dozens of people of all ages stood there, staring up at that small screen for what seemed like an hour. We needed to get changed out of our beach clothes, get the sand out of our hair and pores, and get to dinner, but nobody could move. When Neil Armstrong finally stepped onto the moon's surface, everyone cheered. I have never been able to decide which was more exciting to watch, the takeoff or the first step on the moon ... but they were moments I will never forget.
7/3/2009 10:37:55 AM
On that weekend there were four sailors and at least as many girls plus our normal family of six gathered in the TV room to watch the historic event. My mother got tired of the crowd and retired to her bedroom to watch on a smaller TV. Three of the sailors followed suit and sat in the edge of her bed watching with her. Until the day she died, if you asked my mother what she was doing the day that man first walked on the moon, she would tell you that she was in bed with 3 sailors.
7/2/2009 3:45:15 PM
I was a young boy in Hollywood, on the set where the occaision was being recorded. At one point I escaped my mothers grasp and had to be removed from one of the craters, the director yelled "Cut" and they came & got me...
7/2/2009 3:10:00 PM
My grandfather had died a few days earlier, so my memories of the event are intertwined with his passing. Besides the heat, I remember the smell of seldom-worn clothes and large perfumed aunts whom I didn't know dabbing at the corners of their eyes. I think I watched the launch on Gram's TV right before or after the funeral, but I clearly remember watching the landing - or rather, Walters Cronkite & Schirra replaying it - on our own TV at home. I remember a headlong sense of destiny, a kind of dreamy unreality to it. I knew in my mind what was happening when the LM passed "low gate", the point of no return, but it was still just an exercise, another drill the astronauts were going through in preparation for the landing. It didn't start to become real to me until Aldrin started calling out the lander's altitude and velocity: "500 feet, 4 down... 450, down 2-and-a-half..." And that's when I knew that history was in the making. A hundred feet above the surface... "Picking up some dust." Dust! They were close enough that the exhaust plume was kicking up dust! I started getting goose bumps. And then... "Contact light... okay, engine stop..." Engine stop! They'd shut down the engine! They were down! They weren't a spaceship anymore, but a habitat - on the MOON! I think I was weeping, and I still weep when I relive audio of the descent's final moments. If you weren't there to witness it, you can have no idea just how powerful that moment was. Two men had just landed on another planet. Human toddlers had just taken their first step.
7/1/2009 7:01:20 PM
I was hitchhiking around Europe with my roommate the summer before my senior year in college. We were in Geneva, Switzerland when the moon landing took place. This was in the pre-computer,pre-cellphone age, so we were ignorant of the great event. As we sat in an outdoor cafe, a man came up to our table and asked, "Are you Americans?" When we said yes he shouted "Congratutions! You beat the Russians!" It took a few minutes of his heavily accented English to explain that the US had won the space race and Americans had just walked on the moon. Somehow a portable TV with a long extension cord appeared on a nearby table and we got to see the news report. Soon virtually everyone in the cafe crowded around offering us free rounds of beer along with their happy congratulations. We enjoyed a memorable night celebrating with our new friends!