‘Mum said if she wanted to see the man in the moon, she’d look out the window’
Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon. Former KM editor Ron Green remembers the incredible day
That momentous moon landing was, of course, why we had 24-hour telly for one day only. The Americans may have won the space race against the Russians, but the moon landing triggered a TV ratings race which still rages today.
The Apollo 11 moon shot dominated the telly after it took off on July 16.
But even a supersonic Saturn space rocket takes a long time to travel 240,000 miles.
Like any long journey it gets boring so, apart from a lot of over-excited boffin talk, not a lot happened for almost four days. Then it did get exciting. Both the Beeb and ITV decided to stay on air all-night long. Unfortunately, it was going to happen in the middle of the night British time.
The BBC did it with gravitas, a lot of science, serious presenters, recitals and bits of poetry by thespians like Judi Dench.
It was lightened a bit by David Bowie’s recently released Space Oddity, and Pink Floyd produced something called Moonhead. ITV had a party – a Moon Party in fact.
It was hosted by Kent-born presenter David Frost and included a string of big-named guests including Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Lulu, who won the Eurovi
sion Song Contest for the UK that year, and Engelbert Humperdink.
It went on for hours and hours, exhausting the cast and viewers. My wife Paulene and I were on holiday with my mum and dad. We had two little children so survived on little sleep and were ready for the all-night drama. “The Eagle had landed” a few minutes after nine that evening. Those were the words astronaut Neil Armstrong transmitted to NASA’s mission control in Houston when the lunar module touched down.
It had just 30 seconds of fuel left. Man had landed on the moon for the first time, an amazing historic achievement.
But down on earth 11.30pm was more significant.
Usually TV transmission ended then and the box went off.
But on July 20 the moon programmes came on.
Now that was historic, but unlike the astronauts our endurance quickly flagged.
First mum went to bed, fed up because “if I want to see the man in the moon all I have to do is look out the window”. She never really believed it happened. Then dad went to sleep, and snored. Then Paulene, up with the children, woke me up and said something was happening. It was almost 4am.
Neil Armstrong had managed to get into his cumbersome, water-cooled space suit. As he clambered cautiously out of the module, he opened a storage box and exposed a small 16mm TV camera.
Buzz Aldrin, his man on the moon colleague, flicked the all-important switch – the one that closed the TV camera circuit-breaker.
And so my wife and I were among the 650 million people around the globe to see the first grainy, grey pictures of a man stepping on to the grainy grey surface of the moon.
We were lucky to see it at all. NASA was worried TV equipment would be too heavy for the moon shot. Because the camera was packed upside down technicians on earth had to reverse the pictures before they could be transmitted.
We clearly heard Armstrong say “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. He says he said “a man” but that dispute continues.
The Apollo programme cost NASA about $25 billion. I was worrying about buying a house in Kent for £2,000.
The two brave astronauts spent more than 21 hours on the moon, transmitting pictures from the TV camera they put (the correct way up) on a tripod.
That evening, when the moon was up and they were still on it, my wife and I took our children into the garden and talked about what had happened.
“One day,” I said to my 18-month-old son, “you may be the man on the moon”.
Fifty years later, only 10 other people have walked on the lunar surface.
My son wasn’t one of them.