Celebrating one giant leap
The nation was gripped by the Moon landing 50 years ago. MARION McMULLEN looks at how space fever swept the country
IT TOOK 400,000 men and women from across America to make the seemingly impossible happen... land a man on the Moon. History was made in 1969 when Neil Armstrong took “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
A live transmission from the Moon was watched by an estimated 720 million people around the world and Brits were gripped by events happening 250,000 miles away.
A giant screen was set up in Trafalgar Square in London in front of the National Gallery so that crowds could watch the historic event, while one pub in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham even changed its name to the Man On The Moon Bar to celebrate the Apollo 11 mission.
One Foot In The Grave actor Richard Wilson remembers the historic event as one of his top TV moments saying “it was a stunning technical achievement and an awe-inspiring vision to behold”.
Ina Carlin went into labour as all eyes were turned skywards and her baby son made his appearance as Neil Armstrong took his first momentous step on the Moon.
The West Lothian mum named her space age baby Neil Edwin Michael in honour of all three NASA astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins.
Staff at Madame Tussauds were busy even ahead of the Moon landing putting the finishing touches to waxwork models of the Apollo 11 team.
Interest in the space race was boosted three years earlier when bookmakers William Hill displayed their odds for a successful Moon landing by either Russia or America after the first picture ever taken on the satellite was sent back by Russian spacecraft Luna 9.
Interest was overwhelming by the time of the first Moon landing. BBC1, BBC2 and ITV – the only television stations available in the UK in 1969 – all offered extensive coverage of the lunar landing. Even David Bowie’s Space Oddity single was featured.
The front cover of the Radio Times even featured a rocket with the headline Target Moon.
The first meal Armstrong and Aldrin tucked into on the Moon included bacon cubes, fruit strips
and sugar cookies.
The astronauts were also allowed coffee, which was included for the first time in their mission supplies – an allocation of 15 cups each for the trip. Other tempting titbits included hotdogs, beef stew and bite-sized brownies.
The Moon landing continued to capture the imagination of everyone long after the astronauts returned from their epic journey.
Moon dust samples found their way to the UK for research in September.
Dr Stuart Agrell, from Cambridge University, and Dr P E Clegg, of Queen Mary College, flew to America to collect the dust from NASA’s Houston laboratory after it was released from quarantine.
The samples made the final part of the journey from the Moon packed away in a bag carried on the London Tube.
A spaceman was even spotted on the streets of London the same month when Jonathan Bosley dressed up in a suit used by the Apollo 11. He headed to London Airport to fly to Brussels to illustrate a lecture by Dr Harry Thomas, from Courtaulds, entitled Textiles
In Space Travel.
The following month America’s new heroes themselves visited the UK as part of a 22-nation, 38-day world tour. They visited the American Embassy and Buckingham Palace during their 22-hour flying visit before attending a reception hosted by Prime Minister Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street.
Space toys topped many Christmas lists to Santa that year and aspiring young astronauts could take their Madame Tussauds staff put the finishing touches to waxwork models of Neil Armstrong (front) and Buzz Aldrin on July 15, 1969 pick of everything from a spacesuit to an Apollo Playhouse.
Seven-year-old Stephen Taylor, of Chertsey, demonstrated the new goodies at a pre-Christmas exhibition by the British Toy Manufacturers Association at the Waldorf Hotel... but had a little problem with parking his rocket on the street outside the London hotel.
Even the theme of the Carnaby Street festive illuminations was Get Into Orbit.
This year, China managed to achieve the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon with its
Chang’e 4 mission and the country is also researching whether to send Chinese astronauts to the satellite’s surface for the first time.
Whatever the future holds Neil Armstrong’s achievement will never be forgotten. He once said of his experience of being the first man on the Moon: “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth.
“I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” NASA’s Apollo 11 Astronauts visit London in October 1969