Rocket men make local impact
Area residents remember defining moment on moon
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, July 19, 2009 12:45 AM PDT
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| Associated Press file photo
In this 1969 file photo, Apollo 11 astronauts stand next to their spacecraft. Standing (above) are Col. Edwin E. Aldrin (left to right), lunar module pilot; Neil Armstrong, flight commander; and Lt. Michael Collins, command module pilot. |
ONTARIO—When the Apollo 11 manned moon mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center July 16, 1969, Ontario resident Norma Simpson, 74, knew if she was going to watch with the rest of the world the monumental historical event of a man walking on the moon for the first time, she would first have to buy a television.
So, the graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, bought a small black and white television from her neighbors across the hall, who were upgrading to a bigger TV for $25, just so she could be a part of history.
Simpson said she invited a couple she knew from Idaho, where she grew up, over for sourdough pancakes when it was announced the Apollo 11 crew would reach the moon, and Simpson remembers she and her guests debating the wisdom of sending a man to the moon over sourdough pancakes as they watched the historical event on her television. She said officials even told people how to take pictures of the event at the time it was televised, and she still has the photographs of the images that filled her television screen.
“At the time, we were all really excited,” Simpson said, adding, the couple from Idaho she had invited over to dinner that night did not believe the moon landings should take place. Simpson said they were older than she and somewhat conservative and old-fashioned in their beliefs, especially concerning the lunar landings. Simpson said the couple did not believe it was a good idea to send man to the moon because, if God had wanted man to walk on the moon, he would have sent them there to begin with. When, on July 20, 1969 — 40 years ago Monday — the American spacecraft reached the moon and the Eagle module landed on the moon’s surface allowing Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong to take his first steps on a celestial body other than earth, Simpson said she and her guests were in awe.
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E Pernula wrote on Jul 19, 2009 4:59 AM:
By the way Neil Armstrong was on salary when he did his space mission and only earned the same few hundred dollars that month as any other month that year. "