Kiwis turn on radios for epic lunar step
Delayed television footage flown from Australia by Air Force
When men first set foot on the Moon 48 years ago today, there was no live television feed of the momentous event to New Zealand. Instead, Kiwis were glued to their radios, and had to wait for a delayed TV broadcast in the early evening, after a New Zealand Air Force bomber had delivered the tape from Sydney.
Apollo 11, on July 21, 1969 (New Zealand time) was one of six manned landings on the Moon; the last was in 1972.
For days before and after, Herald readers got wall-to-wall coverage of “Man’s greatest feat”, the “Venture into the unknown”.
“Astronauts relax on eve of lift-off”, we reported on July 16, 1969 followed the next day by “Man’s greatest adventure: Epic voyage to Moon begins”.
Then we settled in for the threeday, 386,400km outward leg of the journey with “Fit and business-like spacemen rest early”, reporting that the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had gone to bed early.
By July 19, we had “Apollo 11 spacecraft to feel first Moon pull today”.
On landing day, with no internet for live updates, we could only inform our readers — in precise detail — of the plans for the landing of the lunar module, Eagle, “in the barren wastes of the Sea of Tranquillity on the Moon”.
But when it came time, next day, to tell it as it happened, the Herald devoted at least three pages to describing the three Americans’ historic feat and on the front displayed a blurry picture of Armstrong’s famous first lunar step — of which he said: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”.
The paper even carried eight columns of verbatim text of Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s discussions while on the surface of the Moon.
On page 5, reporters said that many in New Zealand, including the Governor-General, Sir Arthur Porritt, spent much of the day with a transistor radio nearby or plugged into one ear.
Another avid listener was Grant Christie, now a 65-year-old astronomer who at the time of the landing was in his final year at Mt Albert Grammar School and already an enthusiastic stargazer.
The landing occurred at 8.18am New Zealand time and the first step at 2.56pm.
“It was in the afternoon, in our history class,” Christie recalls. “There were probably about a dozen of us and I had taken a transistor radio to school. The class wasn’t doing anything. We just sat around and listened to the radio and listened as they came down the ladder [ of Eagle, the lunar landing vehicle].
“I remember feeling that Neil Armstrong was at the bottom of the ladder, he’s now standing on the foot of the lander and then he paused for a while, said his words and put his foot on the Moon. I felt he’s standing on the foot of the thing, he’s basically on the Moon . . . and his footprint is still there.”
Christie was already involved with the Auckland Observatory and recalls that the Apollo missions generated huge public interest.
The observatory became involved in international efforts to monitor the moon during Apollo flights, aiming its photo-electric photometer — a highly sensitive light meter — at a specific place on the moon.