Moon landing memories: doctor’s orders canned Nixon dinner

US president Richard Nixon cancelled dinner with the Apollo 11 team in case he contaminated the ­astronauts.

US president Richard Nixon, right, welcomes the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the USS Hornet on July 24, 1969. Picture: AFP

On a Wednesday night 50 years ago, in the days leading up to the historic space mission to put men on the moon, US president Richard Nixon cancelled dinner with the Apollo 11 team in case he “contaminat­ed” the ­astronauts.

Eight days before the July 16, 1969, launch, Neil Armstrong, Michae­l Collins and Edwin “Buzz’’ Aldrin were kept away from anyone­ who might spread germs, on doctor’s orders.

According to the astronauts’ doctor, Charles Berry, that included Nixon, who was to have dinner with the trio on July 9, 1969, before they embarked.

“President Nixon has cancelled a pre-flight dinner meeting with three Apollo 11 astronauts because of the risk of contaminating them,” The Australian’s front-page story read, in this newspaper’s Countdown to the Moon campaign.

The Australian, July 9, 1969.

“With the launch only eight days away, the Apollo astronauts … were polishing up today on the critical lunar flight procedures needed to get them home.”

The crew was completing one of its last training sessions before take-off, and would be kept in isolatio­n running up to blast-off, and for three weeks after touching back down on Earth. “The danger is that contact with people could contaminate the astronauts with germs that could delay the eight-day space trip.”

On the same day, on a different space mission, a pigtail monkey called Bonny died after being brought back early from an orbit 385km above Earth.

To commemorate the groundbreaking mission to the moon, The Australian is recreating the Countdown to the Moon this newspaper published in 1969, before the July 20 landing. The Australian wants to hear what our readers remember about that day: how did you celebrate it? What was the atmosphere like as Apollo 11 touched down on the moon? What did the moon landing mean to you?

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Paperboy heard word on the street

I was a 12-year-old delivering the morning newspapers in Sydney’s Bondi when an elderly lady ran out of her house in Fletcher Street yelling: “They’ve landed on the moon! They’ve landed on the moon!”

Later that dayin the school hall, we watched in awe as Neil Armstrong jumped off the ladder saying the immortal words I’ll never forget.

Riley Brown, Bondi Beach, NSW

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