Apollo 11 astronauts blast into space ‘riding on a pillar of flame’
On this Thursday half a century ago, Apollo 11 had officially exited the Earth’s atmosphere.
On this Thursday half a century ago, Apollo 11 had exited Earth’s atmosphere on its historic mission to land the first humans on the moon.
US astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins had been blasted into space “riding on a pillar of flame” at 11.32pm (AEST) the night before, as millions of television viewers watched across the world.
The Australian’s front-page Countdown to the Moon coverage on July 17, 1969, featured a large image of the spacecraft just seconds after lift-off, accompanied by descriptions of the tense anticipation and excitement surrounding the event.
“All engines are looking good,” Armstrong reported four minutes after blast-off. “It’s bright,” remarked one of the crew, peering out the window as the spaceship raced at 500mph towards Earth orbit.
By 2.16am, the rocket was fired out of Earth orbit towards the moon. At 11.16am, the crew was set to undertake its first mid-course correction before a nine-hour rest period. The spacecraft was expected to enter lunar orbit by Sunday.
To commemorate next week’s 50th anniversary of the moon landing, The Australian wants to hear readers’ recollections of the moment. Where were you when the landing took place? What was the atmosphere like? Perhaps the event sparked an interest in space and adventure?
Our moon landing coverage on the corresponding Thursday reported that five million parts from 20,000 different factories had been sourced in order to create the Saturn-Apollo complex for the moon landing attempt. “The Apollo 11 command module — an $8000 million project — shows how engineering has developed to meet the problem of staying alive in space,” it read.
“This work has demanded a new level of perfection in technology, and unearthed new techniques of great value in other fields. Even 99.9 per cent accuracy still allows an intolerable 5000 failures.”
It also detailed the strict diet the Apollo 11 crew would follow while in space. “The astronauts will get three meals a day, and from them a carefully balanced 2700-odd calories, excluding heavy concentration of fat. They will have meals ranging from beef pot roast, corn chowder, chicken salad, to bacon squares and sausage patties.”
Go to theaustralian.com.au/memories to submit your moon memories and photographs
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