Remember when: Gold Coast paused as man landed on the Moon which had possible local link

MAN took his first step into history’s most fantastic realm when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1969, July 22. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Tuesday July 22, 1969

MAN took his first step into history’s most fantastic realm when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon.

Armstrong achieved mankind’s most spectacular scientific and psychological success when, just before 1pm Gold Coast time he climbed down the ladder attached to the insect-like ferry craft that had given the Earthmen their first landing ever on extra terrestrial soil.

Moon fever paralysed the Gold Coast as thousands of people stayed home or downed tools for the epic radio and television coverage of man’s first moon walk.

And as America’s space age Christopher Columbus, Neil Armstrong, took his first shadowy steps onto the desolate lunar surface at 12.54pm, only a few people continued to walk the city’s “ghost” streets.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1969, July 22. Front page.

The fever really began on Sunday evening when the Southport telephone exchange was flooded with requests from all over the Gold Coast for early morning calls.

But the first of a series of lunar-link frustrations hit the very early 3.30am risers when they found that a scheduled “formation flying” telecast had been abandoned due to technical difficulties.

Meanwhile, the Bulletin revealed there could be a small piece of the Gold Coast on the Moon.

That was the proclamation of Mr J Pinter, managing director of Associated Minerals Consolidated in Southport.

“90 per cent of the world’s titanium comes from Australia and titanium is a vital metal used in spacecraft as a hardener,” he said.

Mr Pinter said his company made around 30 per cent of that titanium.”