French style, beaming wives and V-P’s tip on cool at Apollo 11 blast-off

On this Friday 50 years ago, NASA’s Apollo 11 crew had officially passed the halfway mark on their way to the moon.

How The Australian covered the voyage to the moon on July 18, 1969.

On this corresponding Friday 50 years ago, NASA’s Apollo 11 crew had officially passed the halfway mark on their historic journey to the moon.

“Tonight the craft will have slowed to 2000mph, the lowest speed of its 240,000-mile journey, as it ranges to 180,000 miles from Earth,” The Australian’s front-page coverage read on Friday, July 18, 1969.

“By tomorrow night the spacecraft and its three-man crew will be 20,000 miles from the moon where it will be claimed by lunar gravitation.”

At 11.30am AEST that day, astro­nauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz’’ Aldrin and Michael Collins entered a 10-hour rest period to maximise their energy and focus for the coming days.

Our front-page coverage was accompanied by joyous images of the three astronauts’ wives — Janet Armstrong, Joan Aldrin and Pat Collins — as they reacted to the historic mission lift-off.

“Wasn’t it wonderful?!” Mrs Collins said of the moment she watched her husband fly off into space inside the 36-storey rocket.

To commemorate the 50th annive­rsary of the moon landing, The Australian wants to hear readers’ recollections of the moment. Where were you when the landing took place? Perhaps the event sparked an ­interest in space and adventure?

Inside the paper, our coverage speculated how history books would record the momentous moon landing, suspecting future accounts would neglect to mention­ that US vice-president Spiro Agnew had sucked on ice cubes as he watched the blast-off.

“They will say that the nations of the world sent their represent­atives to watch and will probably not bother to mention that a television personality named Ed McMahon hollered down from his bleacher seat for a can of soda pop,” it read.

“Or that Paris Match, a French magazine, passed out straw hats to the 105 European businessmen it brought to the scene.”

It also detailed how German-American aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun was predicting that human colonies would be established on the moon by 2069.

“The moon bases (will be) pressurised and airconditioned, closely resembling the Earth’s atmosphe­re,” von Braun hypoth­esised.

Go to theaustralian.com.au/memories to submit your moon memories and photographs

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Scrapbook records historic feat

My brother Barry and I were enthralled by the imminent landing on the moon and decided to make a scrapbook of the event.

We knew this was going to be a historical milestone in our lives.

Barry was 15 and I was 13 — in fact, I would turn 13 on the day they landed on the moon’s surface.

Of course the Americans say they landed on the moon on July 20, as that was the date in America, but it was July 21 here.

Fifty years later, we still have our scrapbook and periodically bring it out to show our children and now grandchildren.

We still think of it as the major historical milestone in our childhood.

Phillip Teperman, Malvern, Victoria

‘Major historical milestone in our childhood’: Barry, left, and Phillip Teperman with their moon landing scrapbook.