A charge-coupled device ( CCD ) camera with a light-sensitive electronic detector that Strojnik uses for her work , 1992 . Private Archives .
The Moon . Photo : NASA .
MEMORIES OF THE FIRST LANDING OF MAN ON THE MOON
“ When that summer of 1969 , as a nineteenyear-old girl in Ljubljana I watched the documentaries and interviews about the landing of a man on the Moon , I was stupefied with admiration for the greatness of the project . I realized and apprehended that this was not an achievement of a single genius , but the result of a successful collaboration of many people , people just like you and me .
Even more than in the first man ’ s step on the Moon , I was curious about how they got there . I watched the engineers who worked on the project on television . Physicists on television spoke about gravity , the concept of weightlessness that we didn ’ t really understand at the time . All of this had a tremendous influence on my life . I just enrolled in the first year of the study of physics , without slightest intention to explore the universe . Also , because it was all happening far away in America . Surprise , surprise ! Two years later I was studying in the U . S . and in eight years I was working for a company actively involved in space research .”
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