Back to Earth and off to an Aussie lunch for Apollo 11 crew

The astronauts of Apollo 11 went to the moon in July 1969. Four months later, they had lunch at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney.

Neil Armstrong, left, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins ride in a motorcade past Hyde Park, Sydney, in November 1969. Picture: Tom Jenner

The astronauts of Apollo 11 went to the moon in July 1969. Four months later, they had lunch at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney.

As part of the “Giantstep” project­, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins­ travelled on Air Force II to 24 countries in 45 days.

At least 100 million people turned out to greet the spacemen around the world, including Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Paul VI, the king of Thailand, European royalty and the shah of Iran.

NASA public affairs assistant Geneva Barnes said the tour must have been difficult for the astronauts.

“People were looking to them to say inspirational things,” she said in an interview for NASA’S Johnson Space Centre Oral History­ Project. “They were called upon to make speeches and remarks at every place they had a public appearance.”

Australia was towards the end of the trip, one week after the plane had been to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

“In Australia, when we landed in Perth, the local officials insisted on coming on board and spraying for tsetse flies,” Ms Barnes recalled­.

“Nick Ruwe, our State Department guy, was highly offended that they would do that but they insisted on doing it anyway.

“We were told that when they came on board to inspect the plane, we should just sit there and stare at them.”

Armstrong spoke to the crowd that had lined up in Perth to see the astronauts on their brief stop.

“I’ve been here a few times before­, up there,” Armstong said. “Never this close and it’s a genuine pleasure for me.”

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The tracking station at Car­nar­von, 900km north of Perth, played an important role in sending data back to Houston, inclu­d­in­g fuel and oxygen levels and the astronauts’ heartbeats and respiration rates. It was also the last point of communication before the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere for splashdown.

As Armstrong stepped onto the moon, his heart rate was being monitored at Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra, and the image­s broadcast from Parkes, 360km west of Sydney.

Prime minister John Gorton had invited the flight crew to visit Australia in a congratulatory cable that was waiting for them when they were taken onboard the USS Hornet following their recovery in the Pacific.

Mr Gorton’s daughter-in-law Paula can still remember the excitement in the lead-up to meeting the spacemen in Sydney.

“To my mind, these astronauts carried that sensation of a modern-day pioneering spirit of adventure and scientific discovery,” she said. “I had been caught up in the global excitement and here was the opportunity to meet these intrepid men. I was very anxious that this chance did not pass us by.”

The astronauts and their wives arrived in Sydney from Bangkok via Perth on a Friday night and left for Guam on the Sunday morning.

Ms Gorton said a crowd of 3000 met the astronauts in Sydney and a line formed in the ballroom of the Wentworth Hotel to greet the crew and shake their hands. “We waited to the side and then were called over and the prime minister introduced his family,” she said.

“These were highly intelligent men who had accomplished extraordinary things, but who could have been the type one met every day on the street. Sadly, their punishing schedule was obviously taking its toll. They were robotic with weariness and exhaustion, going through the motions of genialit­y and politeness.”

Ms Gorton remembered being impressed by the “ordinary family men who accomplished an extraordinary feat”.

“They didn’t have obvious superhuman qualities,” she said.

While Ms Gorton didn’t get a selfie with the astronauts, she did persuade the flight crew to sign her menu for the luncheon, a now treasured possession.