Wednesday, July 21. 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 3
One small step, one big memory
When asked, most baby boomers remember exactly where they were at two particular moments — when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
On July 20, 1969, I was outside playing when my dad called me in to watch television. Even at the young age of 12, I knew whatever I was going to watch was going to be important. My dad rarely asked me to watch television with him.
I went in the house and found the whole family gathered around the black and white Zenith. Dád stood in back of the television constantly adjusting the antenna. My brother, sister, mother and I watched between the horizontal lines on the grainy picture as the Apollo 11 lunar landing module set down on the surface of the moon.
We stared in silence and disbelief at the picture of the spacecraft on the moon's surface.
As I listened to the crackly communication between the astronauts and technicians at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, in Houston, I realized why my father wanted me to watch television with him that afternoon. I was too young to realize it then, but he knew it was history in the making.
We watched as the door of the lunar module opened. Neil Armstrong emerged, climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the moon and into history.
After 30 years the memory is still fresh.
To this day, many contend the moon landing was mankind's crowning technological achievement. However, some believe it was a waste of time and money. But most Americans would now agree that it
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brought the country closer together at a time when it was being torn apart by assassinations, race riots and Vietnam War protests.
Since then, space travel has become commonplace. NASA is busy working in cooperation with Russia on the space station. Last week, Neil Armstrong, in one of his rare public appearances, advocated the benefits of commercial space tourism. Imagine a round trip ticket to the moon and back. According to Armstrong, it won't be long before that ticket
will be available.
Later this week e w ek .
E i l e e n Collins,
N A S A's first female space shuttle commander, will attempt to shatter the gender barrier. She
John Franey
Kansan columnist
and the Columbia crew are scheduled to take the shuttle into space to deploy Chandra, the largest X-ray telescope in the world.
Apollo 11 was a crowning achievement for humanity and technology, as well as a moment that I'll never forget. And it must have been even more unforgettable for my father, who was born only 10 years after the Wright brothers made their first successful flight at Kitty Hawk.
in 1961. President Kennedy told the American people that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
Franey is an Overland Park snior in journalism
WASHINGTON — On the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing, the men of Apollo 11 received the prestigious Langley Gold Medal for aviation today, met with President Clinton at the White House and were praised for an astonishing mission that united the nation.
Neil Armstrong, who commanded Apollo 11 and was the first man to walk on the moon, Edwin A. "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins blazed a path farther than any we have known, Vice President Al Gore said in ceremonies at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
Aviation award praises giant step
Clinton began a Rose Garden press appearance with a rhetorical nod to the three former astronauts, who visited the White House this morning.
They and everyone at NASA over the years have made an extraordinary contribution to our nation and to humanity," Clinton said. "I am very grateful to them."
On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin landed the Apollo lunar module they called Eagle on the moon's Sea of Tranquility. Hours later, Armstrong descended a ladder and became the first to walk the lunar surface. Collins remained in lunar orbit aboard the command ship, Columbia. Gore, speaking at ceremonies staged beside the Apollo 11 command ship, said the astronauts had
The Apollo 11 on-board computer, he said, had less than 1/1000 the memory storage of a modern, hand-held electronic organizer and could hold data equal to only about 1/20 of a typical floppy disk in modern computers.
accomplished their mission with what would now be regarded as primitive equipment.
"It is even more astonishing that their mission was pulled off with the technology that was available then." Gore said.
The Langley Gold Medal, named for American aviation pioneer, Samuel P. Langley, had been awarded only 21 times previously. The first recipients were Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1909.
Gore said that the Apollo 11 triumph had come during a time when the United States was wracked by demonstrations against the Vietnam War, by assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy and by urban riots.
Apollo 11, he said, gave a new sense of unity.
"We came together, transformed by the mission you undertook," he said. "Family and communities came together to watch with fear and pride."
Gore told Armstrong that with his first step onto the Sea of Tranquility, he had brought tranquility to us at home.
Catch of the day: a 38-year-old capsule
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Gus Grissom's Mercury space capsule was reeled in yesterday by an underwater salvage team.
The long-awaited recovery coincided with the 30th anniversary of man's first moon landing. And it was just the day before the 38th anniversary of Grissom's 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7.
"I'm quite relieved that the capsule came out of the water in one piece, and I'm anxious to get back to Florida," said expedition leader Curt Newport in a statement issued by the Discovery Channel, which financed the search.
Newport and his team were expected to bring the Liberty Bell 7 back to Cape Canaveral today.
The crew set sail July 1, picking up where they left off at the beginning of May, when they located the spacecraft in relatively good condition 300 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral. The capsule was
located more than three miles underwater, but they had to leave it when the cable to their robotic recovery vessel snapped during rough weather.
Bomb experts on board inspected an explosive navigation device that failed to go off when the spacecraft sank. As soon as the small bomb was removed and disposed of, the capsule was placed in a specially designed container filled with sea water to help preserve it.
Because of problems recovering Liberty Bell 7 — two days were wasted because of bad navigational data, and the new recovery vessel kept breaking — Newport and his team had no time to search for the capsule's infamous hatch.
Liberty Bell 7 sank soon after splashing down. The explosive bolts that blew open the hatch detonated prematurely, and the spacecraft filled with water. A helicopter tried to pull it out, but finally had to let go. Grissom nearly drowned.
Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra said that without the hatch, there would be no way to prove what happened. But he added: "I know it was something mechanical, not Grissom's fault. So it's not vindicating Grissom at all. I've already vindicated Grissom a long time ago."
He insisted until his death in the 1967 Apollo launch pad fire that the hatch problem was not his fault.
Newport had hoped to salvage film from a camera that was running when Liberty Bell 7 splashed down. But the the camera was found in mud at the bottom of the capsule. The film was unusable.
Under an agreement with NASA and the Smithsonian institution, the capsule will be trucked to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, where it will be taken apart, cleaned of corrosives, and eventually put on display. Though found and recovered by a private company, the capsule is still considered government property.
Betty Grissom, the astronaut's widow, had lamented the discovery of the capsule back in May, saying, "It brings back memories and there's nothing good."