In their own words
The rocket that rocked our world
By Dauna Coulter
Forty-five years ago a mammoth rocket and some
pioneers of great vision helped humankind achieve a
remarkable feat: walking on the Moon. The event had a
profound effect on those who witnessed it and created
endless possibilities for those who came after.
Those of us old enough to have lived in Huntsville before
NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon mission can still recall the ground
shaking as the mighty Saturn V first-stage rocket boosters,
secured in a colossal test stand at nearby Marshall Space
Flight Center, rumbled and roared. As the Earth trembled,
we clung to our swing sets, paused our bicycles, jumped
off our pogo sticks, and just stood still – mesmerized and
amazed by what we knew was history in the making.
Soon after, the rest of the nation stood equally still
– mesmerized and amazed as Neil Armstrong took his
legendary “small step” on a distant world. A feat made
possible by the same rocket.
It was one of those “transcendent moments of awe that
change forever how we experience life and the world.”
Although John Milton wasn’t speaking of the moment
humankind set foot on the Moon, his words aptly describe
the profound effect events of such magnitude have upon
those who witness them.
July 20 marks the 45th anniversary of the famous
footstep – the result of a long and concerted effort by
400,000 NASA and contractor team members from across
the co untry.
This incredible event inspired and uplifted the people
who watched it unfold. Black-and-white televisions
flashed patterns across darkened living rooms as viewers
stared into the light at the almost surreal scene.
“I woke my two youngsters up to watch,” said Ed
Buckbee, formerly of Marshall Public Affairs and the first
director of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. “They were
half asleep on the couch – yawning, their eyelids drooping
– but my eyes were open wide! I could hardly believe
what I saw. We actually pulled it off – humankind walking
on the Moon! It was like something out of a science fiction
novel.”
Ken Fernandez, who has worked at Marshall for more
than 40 years, was 23 when the first moonwalk took place:
“The night of the moonwalk, I was in the Lake
Guntersville campgrounds with a group from my church.
We were watching the event on a portable TV plugged
into my car. It was fairly late in the evening, but over 100
people from surrounding campsites gathered around our
TV. Up on the Moon, Armstrong came down a ladder and
then stood on the lander’s pad. When he stepped off
onto the lunar surface, there was a spontaneous cheer
that was probably heard across the lake. It was one of
those moments that you never forget.”
James Daniels, who worked for NASA from 1956 to 1981,
attended the Apollo 11 Saturn V launch and then headed
up to Fort Walton Beach for a brief respite.
“I rented a room in a beachside apartment with a
screened deck overlooking the Gulf. I put a little blackand-white TV out on the deck and watched most of the
Moon voyage coverage. I watched all during the late
afternoon and early night of landing day. I was so relaxed
by the Apollo landing time, which was late night at Fort
Walton, that I dozed off in my chair in front the TV with
the sounds of the ocean waves lapping the beach in the
night. Fortunately, I awakened as Armstrong began his
exit from the Lunar Module. I sat entranced by the ghostly
glare of Armstrong’s space suit while he backed down
the ladder in the darkened shadows of the vehicle and
dropped off the last rung.
“When he uttered, ‘That’s one small step for a man,
and a giant leap for mankind,’ I cried. My thoughts reeled
at his words, which so well captured the event’s historic
importance to us all.”
The Saturn V, the rocket that made it all possible, was
designed at Marshall under the direction of Dr. Wernher
von Braun. Bob Ward, the Huntsville Times’ first full-time
space and missile reporter from 1962 to1966 and then
Sunday editor, later wrote a book about the famous
rocket scientist. And in 1969, he couldn’t resist stepping
back into his reporter shoes to cover the big story.
“For old times’ sake, I assigned myself to Cape
Canaveral in July 1969 to help cover the Apollo 11
launch. At NASA’s press site shortly after liftoff, I was sitting
up in the press bleachers tapping out my story on an old
typewriter when I suddenly spotted Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger
leading an elderly gentleman whom I recognized through
the crowd below. I hurried down from the bleachers and
intercepted the pair. Amid the swirl of people moving
about, I asked Stuhlinger if he would introduce me to his
companion, Dr. Hermann Oberth, first space mentor to a
teen-aged Wernher von Braun in Germany.
“With Stuhlinger translating, I interviewed the 75-yearold space pioneer – one of the founding fathers of
rocketry and modern astronautics. Oberth found the
Apollo 11 launch ‘even more exciting’ than he had
dreamt as a boy. He said that NASA must press on and
‘undertake a manned Mars mission.’ It struck me as so
very fitting that Professor Oberth should be present for this
epochal mission to the Moon.”
Fitting indeed. Twelve years before the launch, Oberth
had written these words in his book Man Into Space:
“This is the goal: To make available for life every place
where life is possible. To make inhabitable all worlds as yet
uninhabitable and all life purposeful.”
Forty-five years ago, a big rocket rocked our world by
helping a human step forth onto another world.
“Shall we follow…?” (from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, Burnt
Norton)
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