A LUNAR LIFT FOR THE AMERICAN SPIRIT
50 years ago today, millions watched Apollo 11 launch
The streets of Titusville, Fla., had transformed into one giant parking lot by the time Shirley Varsel drove five of her kids into town on July 15, 1969 — the day before Apollo 11 rocketed toward the moon.
Hotels were booked, families were camped out along the beach and all eyes were trained to the east, where the spacecraft sat on Launch Pad 39A.
“When I got there, it was just like a big picnic. People had guitars, they were doing tailgates — it was a happy time, everyone was in a good mood,” Varsel, who is now 86 and lives in Spring, remembered. “It was a oncein-a-lifetime chance to see something as spectacular as the launch.”
The family slept in their station wagon that night, the bright lights of the spacecraft reflecting off the water and illuminating the black sky.
And the next morning at 9:32 a.m., the Varsels were among an estimated 1 million people who gathered across Florida’s beaches and inlets, “hoping for a glimpse of the rocket as it arched through the sky,” according to a Houston Chronicle article from the launch day. Millions more worldwide watched on their TV sets.
“I remember hearing the roar of the rocket and feeling the vibrations,” Varsel said. “We had a pretty good view.”
The launch to the moon went off without a hitch. But it would be another four days before the world learned whether Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could touch down on the moon.
“Nine seconds before liftoff, the rocket’s five engines ignited, sending a sheet of flame over the launch pad and about 20 acres of the surrounding marshland,” the BBC reported that day. “Then with an immense roar, the booster rocket took off into the sky, taking Apollo 11 and the hopes of the world with it.”
It took Apollo 11 only five minutes to leave Earth’s atmosphere on July 16, 1969, but the buildup to the event was more than a decade in the making.
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, an event that shook the U.S. to its core and touched off fears that one of the country’s biggest adversaries had gotten the upper hand technologically and militarily.
Thus the Space Race began. And over the next 12 years, the U.S. and the Soviets battled for the top spot in the cosmos.
America started with the Mercury Project, aimed at putting men into Earth’s orbit. Then came Gemini, which sought to fly long-duration missions in space and perfect rendezvous and docking in Earth’s orbit.
The Soviets seemed to beat the U.S. at every turn: first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in April 1961; first spacewalk, conducted by Alexei Leonov, in March 1965; first spacecraft, Luna 10, to orbit the moon in April 1966.
But all the while, America was marching toward an end goal: putting humans on the moon.
The goal first was suggested to Congress by President John F. Kennedy in May 1961 and later solidified by his now-famous 1962 speech at Rice University, in which he orated: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Then came the money. By 1969, the Apollo project had received more than $16 billion, the equivalent of $112.6 billion today.
“The moonshot is really, I think, the defining feat of the American century, the 20th century,” Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and Rice University professor, said during a radio interview in April. “It’s paid off in the fact that Americans are proud of it, it lifted the American spirit, but just in the marvels that engineering and science developed in order to go to the moon.”
Each Apollo mission — starting with the Apollo 1 fire that claimed the lives of its three crew members and forced NASA to overhaul its safety protocols — built on the last. And in January 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 was tapped: spaceflight veterans Michael Collins, Aldrin and Armstrong.
Collins, a former Air Force fighter pilot, flew on Gemini 10 in 1966. He was selected as the command module pilot and would not get a chance to step foot on the moon.
Aldrin, also an Air Force fighter pilot, flew Gemini 12 in 1966 where he made a five-hour spacewalk. Initial speculation suggested that Aldrin would be the first man to step foot on the moon.
But ultimately, NASA tapped Armstrong to walk on the moon first. A civilian test pilot, Armstrong had his first spaceflight in 1966 aboard Gemini 8, where he successfully brought the capsule home after it was knocked out of orbit by a rogue thruster.
The nation came together in the months leading up to the launch, confident that both man and machine would succeed. President Richard Nixon scheduled a 16-nation tour immediately following the launch, planning to tout America’s greatness if and when the launch went flawlessly.
But the world still held its breath as the eight-day mission began. In Houston, the mayor pro tem urged residents to fly American flags during the flight and, more importantly, to pray, according to the Houston Chronicle’s July 16, 1969, edition.
“I think it would be a fine gesture until the astronauts return,” said Frank O. Mancuso, then the mayor pro tem. “I know the prayers of us all will go with them.”
Varsel and her family were new to Florida in 1969. They moved to Maitland, about an hour west of Cape Kennedy, after her husband, Chuck, got a job at Minute Maid.
Chuck, now 89, had to work that day, but he wanted his wife and five of their six children to witness the historic event.
After a night in their station wagon, the family awoke to a sweltering day — described by one spectator as air so thick with humidity it felt like a silk cloth brushing his face, according to America Space, a website founded in 2009 by two aerospace engineers that remains dedicated to reporting on America’s space efforts.
“Headlights … twinkled in the pre-dawn darkness as spectators arose from their backseats, from their tents, from beneath makeshift blankets, from inside their camper vans, and even from their boats anchored in the Indian and Banana Rivers,” the website said. “There were snack bars and bikini-clad spectators firing up barbecues and opening beer coolers—but the sensation remained calm.”
Kathleen Varsel, then 8, clamped to the top of the family’s station wagon, while Karen, then 7, leaned against its side. The rest of the children watched from the beach, fishing rods in hand, as a fireball erupted some 15 miles away, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
“Finally, having generated the 7.6 million pounds of thrust necessary to lift itself from the launch pad, the rocket began its slow climb past the launch tower on a tail of white flame too intense to be looked at directly,” the Chronicle’s launch article stated.
It was a day Shirley Varsel will never forget — a day exceeded in historical significance only by the day Armstrong and Aldrin took their first steps on the moon. The family watched that moment crowded around the television, like the 600 million others around the world who watched the event.
“I remember watching it on TV when we landed on the moon,” Varsel said. “My husband had a camera and we took a picture of the TV, of the guys on the moon.”
“I think it was a time when you don’t realize just what a big event it was,” she said.
“The moonshot is really, I think, the defining feat of the American century, the 20th century.”
Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian and Rice University professor