Humans worldwide crowded around TV sets and huddled over radios; school classes stopped and workplaces fell in silence.
Everyone held their breath as Commander Neil Armstrong and Pilot Buzz Aldrin, of the Apollo 11 spacecraft crew, landed on the lunar surface of our beautiful moon. After the spacecraft had successfully landed, and the -“Engine arm is off”- Armstrong said “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Six hours and thirty-nine minutes after they landed, Armstrong was the first man to place a footstep on the moon; Aldrin followed 19 minutes later. The men spent two hours and forty-five minutes on the Moon’s surface and collected 21.5kg of samples.
Two and a half hours after landing, Pilot Buzz Aldrin radioed to Earth: “This is the LM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”
Come see an original copy of
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN from
Tuesday, July 22nd, 1969
Inside the Observatory Museum
