July 20th, 1969, 8:30pm: As an 8-year old, I was packed off to bed. My folks knew I was very interested in the upcoming Moon Landing, so…
The estate I grew up on was a young one, so was full of kids in the mid to late 60s. We’d spend hours out playing on the road or in each others gardens. The Space Race was all the rage and whenever there was a Gemini launch, one of the mothers would shout out to us and we’d all pile into the nearest house to watch grainy black and white pictures of the launch on a small, boxy TV. Then we’d all charge out into the street again, playing at being astronauts, or Batman (another craze of the time).
I remember on that night of July 20th saying to my Dad, as I was being tucked in, that I wanted him to wake me to watch the landing as it unfolded at 4am our time. “This is history in the making” I said to him, portentously (or should that be pretentiously?). He agreed that he would wake me as the whole family would watch the event.
July 21st, 1969, 7:30am: I woke up and realized my dad hadn’t woken me to watch the Moon Landing. I was mad. So I rushed downstairs to the kitchen where Mum was cooking my breakfast and Dad was eating his. “Why didn’t you wale me up!?” I demanded. He looked perplexed. “I did, son”, he replied. Whatever look I gave him obviously indicated I didn’t believe him. “I woke you up at five to four”, he said, “and you, Mum and me watched the landing! After it was over, I put you back to bed.”
Evidently, I still looked unconvinced so my Mum piped in and said: “You’re Dad’s not lying to you. All of us sat and watched the landing.”
I had to conclude that my folks wouldn’t lie to me. I don’t believe they were in a conspiracy to deny the facts or that I’d been abducted by aliens during that crucial hour so that all memory of it was wiped.
I’d simply been a tired little kid who wasn’t fully awake when I was dragged from bed to watch one of the most momentous events in history unfold. So I can claim, I was there, watching with the other 600 million people around the globe at the time. I just don’t remember it.
June 21st, 2009: A Sky at Night Special is broadcast that attempts to recreate what it was like in the run up to the launch of Apollo 11 and the subsequent landing. Archive footage, featuring James Burke, Patrick Moore
Then footage of the lunar module descending towards the Moon appeared with the voices of Armstrong and Aldrin calling out positional changes. Then the programme credits rolled to the Sky at Night theme music. What!? I’d missed it again! 40 years on and history repeated itself. Guess I feel asleep watching it. Yeesh!
I’ve seen the footage many times over the past 4 decades and I’m looking forward to seeing NASA’s cleaned up and restored footage of the landing.
A couple of good documentaries are coming up on TV for the 40th Anniversary, notably Moonwalk One which is being aired on Discovery HD (as well as the standard-definition Discovery Channel) [in Europe]. I don’t know if it’s airing on Discovery in the US.
So, for those on the European side of the pond, here are the various Apollo-related programs that are airing over the next few days: Apollo 40th Anniversary Programmes
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Apollo 11 Videos:
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Amazon.com BestSellers
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Filed under: Mercury, Gemini & Apollo • My Personal Astronomy Blog
Earth and the Moon On July 20, 1969 — Michael Collins should have been the world’s loneliest man. He was the member of the Apollo 11 mission who did not walk on the moon, but rather stayed back in the command module Columbia, orbiting the Earth’s satellite, while his cohorts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, made their historic landing….