Man on the street: Where were you when man first walked on moon?
On July 16, 1969, NASA’s Apollo program launched Apollo 11 from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard.
They arrived at their destination four days later on July 20, and history was made when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
The well-known phrase was then coined, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Saturday will mark the 50th anniversary of the first time man set foot on the moon.
As with most historically momentous, and sometimes tragic events, people tend to remember where they were and what they were doing when it occurred.
Six individuals at the Imperial Community Center recalled memories of that day in history.
Angie Beethe
Angie Beethe of Imperial said she was at home helping her mom around the house.
“We didn’t have TV back then, so we always listened to the radio,” Beethe said. “Mom turned on the radio and told us we had to listen because it is educational.”
Beethe and her family listened to the announcement of the first man on the moon, and they continued to follow the story while gathered around the radio.
David Bauerle
David Bauerle of Champion said he was 13 years old and living on the farm. The whole family gathered around their black and white television set to watch the moon landing.
“We actually watched everything from launch to the first steps on the moon surface,” Bauerle said.
He said he had always been interested in space and space travel. Over the years growing up and through high school, Bauerle wanted to become an astronaut.
“That didn’t actually happen,” he said, “but my interest led me into the field of computer technology in college.”
He is also a big sci-fi fan, then and now, he said.
Carolyn Wallin
Carolyn Wallin of Imperial said she and her family were out on the farm and watched every second of the lunar missions on TV.
She recalled when Apollo 8 orbited the moon for the first time on Christmas Eve 1968, just seven months before Apollo 11, and one of the astronauts read Genesis 1:1 from the Bible while gazing at the moon’s surface.
“That was so awesome that he did that,” said Wallin.
The 1968 Apollo 8 mission set the world stage for the much grander Apollo 11 moon landing.
After watching the events of Apollo 11, Wallin said she went outside that night and looked up at the moon.
“I was so amazed thinking that men were walking on its surface right at that moment,” she said.
Dennis Batterman
Dennis Batterman of Imperial said he was a junior in high school in Tripp, South Dakota at the time.
“I was out in the field picking cucumbers. I always carried a radio with me as I worked. I heard the announcement come over the radio that man had set foot on the moon,” he said.
Bill Sharp
Bill Sharp of Imperial recalls he was at work at Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado.
“The announcement came over the PA system. I was excited their mission was a success after all the time and work it took to get there,” Sharp said.
Kurt Deutsch
Kurt Deutsch of Imperial said he always followed everything that NASA did and still does.
He was living in Kansas City, Missouri and was attending summer school because he was a “bad boy,” he said with a side grin.
“I was supposed to be in school that day but stayed home so I could watch the moon landing on TV. I thought that was pretty cool,” he said.
Less known fact
That day will be remembered by many for its historical value. But there was another interesting “first” in history that was not publicized at the time and considered controversial.
Aldrin was an elder at his church and asked for special permission to take bread and wine with him to space to give himself Holy Communion on the moon, which he did as he read from the Gospel of John.
That moment accomplished a two-fold historical fact as the first religious ceremony in space and the first food or drink consumed on the moon and in the form of communion elements.