If lunar landing all fiction, that’s an impressive hoax

TO those who are wondering if the Moon landing really was a hoax, all I can say is, you believe what you want to believe.

But I was on duty at NASA Orroral Valley in the ACT on July 20, 1969 (GMT) to watch our 100foot dish lock on to the lunar module on a clear, sunny Canberra morning. The Moon walk itself started just after noon (AEST).

A hoax like that would be as great an achievement as the whole Apollo 11 mission itself.

Most Moon landing records refer to CSIRO Parkes (Deep space, 200ft dish) and NASA Honeysuckle Creek (Moon landing, 100ft dish), but several other back-up stations in Australia were locked on to “receive only” from the lunar module. They included NASA Tidbinbilla ACT (Deep space, 100ft dish), NASA Orroral Valley ACT (All spacecraft, 100ft dish) and NASA Cooby Creek Qld (GeoSynchronous spacecraft, 40ft dish).

I was part of the Ampex data recording crew at Orroral Valley, seconded from my normal Test Eqpt Lab duties. I had a TV monitor and viewed and heard all of the drama of the landing.

The big Parkes 200ft dish had trouble initially, but managed to replace Honeysuckle in the early stages of the lunar module landing. I reckon there was some CSIRO/NASA politics happening there, but it all worked out OK and Parkes became a movie story that is not all that popular with NASA Veterans.

I had previously been at Cooby Creek, which was closing down after some satellites failed. I had spent some months training at various NASA courses around the US to start up Cooby Creek, near Toowoomba.

Lots of exciting new space technologies emerged around that period like international TV broadcasts, international telephony, GPS, continuous international transport voice and data.

In January 1970, the staff and families of the three NASA Canberra stations were invited to Parliament House to be thanked for our efforts by Vice President Spiro Agnew. Our PM, John Gorton, and other VIPs mingled at refreshments following the speeches. It was an impressive day.

ROY GRACE, BROADBEACH WATERS