THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
79th Year, No.11
The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
Friday, July 18, 1969
Apollo 11 rockets to moon
SPACE CENTER, Houston (UPI)—The three Apollo 11 astronauts blasted off from Cape Kennedy Wednesday on a historic voyage to fulfill man's age-old dream of setting foot on the moon.
"We're looking good," called Command Pilot Neil A. Armstrong, as he and his crewmen, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, thundered from launching pad 39-A atop and earthshaking Saturn 5 rocket and into space exactly on time at 9:32 a.m. EDT, the culmination of eight years of toil.
"This is the big one," said Launch Director Rocco Petrone after the perfect lift-off. "Our first step has been started right. Every step of the mission has got to work. Every step has its own risks and dangers," he said.
The crew of Apollo 11, sticking to business and refraining from chit-chat, hurtled into a 119-mile-high earth orbit.
On their first pass over the United States, the astronauts tried to make an unscheduled television broadcast back to earth but Cape Kennedy only received one minute of signal because they were so low and could not relay it.
The "big" television show is set for Sunday and Monday with all of the moon-walk scheduled to be beamed back to earth in black and white. During the moon-walk, the astronauts will gather about 130 pounds of lunar rocks and dust. They will also set out a series of experiments that will continue to tell scientists about the moon after they leave.
After checking out the ship's systems, they triggered a five-minute, 20-second burst of the Saturn 5 third stage rocket which accelerated Apollo 11 about 7,000 miles per hour.
"It was beautiful." Armstrong radioed, three hours after the launch, as the rocket's third stage jolted Apollo 11 out of its earth orbit and right on target for its quarter-million-mile trip to the moon. "That Saturn gave us a magnificent ride," Armstrong said.
Their lack of extraneous remarks to the ground reflected not only their demanding duties, but their general scientific minds as well. All are dedicated experimental aviators and are expected to concentrate far more on the engineering aspects of their mission rather than the romantic.
So magnificent was the launch that even the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, at Cape Kennedy with his followers to protest the spending of billions on space instead of fighting poverty, said that at the moment of liftoff, "I really forgot the fact that we had so many hungry people. I was one of the proudest Americans as I stood on this spot."
If the epic journey continues as flawlessly as it began, Armstrong and Aldrin will spend 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon late Sunday and early Monday—2 hours and 41 minutes of it walking on the moon's bleak, airless, surface.
Just half an hour after breaking out of earth orbit at 25,188 miles per hour, Apollo 11 separated from its rocket stage, turned around and gently docked nose-to-nose with the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) atop the third rocket stage.
The LEM, nicknamed "Eagle," rides to its destined moon orbit atop the nose of the command ship "Columbia," after being pulled from the rocket stage housing.
The LEM was extracted with precision and the astronauts fired a brief burst of the command ship's main rocket to maneuver away from the spent Saturn rocket stage drifting near the spacecraft.
Five hours into flight, project officials reported that Apollo 11's course was so accurate that a mid-course steering correction had been canceled.
Armstrong and his crewmates dwelled mostly on technical talk, skipping the glowing descriptions of the earth fading behind that were radioed back by some of their predecessors.
Armstrong, however, did offer this observation:
"You might be interested that out my left-hand window right now, I can observe the entire continent of North American, Alaska, over the Pole, down to the Yucatan Peninsula, Cuba, the northern part of South America and then I run out of window."
Hundreds of dignitaries, led by Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew and former President Lyndon B. Johnson, watched the liftoff from the cape.
President Nixon, who Tuesday night told the astronauts by telephone that they were embarking on "the greatest adventure man has ever undertaken," watched on television in the White House.
"We should, in my judgment, put a man on Mars by the end of this century," Agnew said.
Johnson called it an "endeavor to bring peace to mankind."
The mission of Apollo 11 begins its climax Saturday, when the ungainly space rig drops into orbit around the moon.
The men of Apollo 11 are scheduled to turn man's dream of reaching the moon into a reality Sunday when Armstrong and Aldrin leave Collins in lunar orbit
(Continued to page 8)
BULLETIN
In compliance with Governor Robert B. Docking's proclamation declaring Monday, July 21, a state holiday, all University offices will be closed all day, and all University classes will be dismissed.
The only continuing University operations will be the previously scheduled "KU Preview," and functions vital to the security of the University.
The Midwestern Music and Art Camp will hold classes on a revised schedule. Most divisions will begin classes at 9:30 a.m, with the following exceptions: Speech and Debate, 10:20 a.m.; Spanish, 10:30 a.m.; Latin, 10:10 a.m., and Music, 9:40 a.m.
Photo courtesy of UPI and KMBC-TV Moment in history
Edwin Aldrin
UPI Telephoto
UPI Telephoto
Michael Collins
UPI Telephoto
Neil Armstrong