Remembering the Moon Landing, Nearly 50 Years Later: ‘We Were All Completely Silent’

From 12/17/1903 when the Wright bros took mankind into the air for the first time, it was just less that 66 years that we 'flew' to the moon. We've not made that kind of progress since ....

I was 11 then, post op in hospital (Dunedin, New Zealand). After I had maneuvered my way down the stairs to the TV room, I discovered that we did not have a satellite ground station up and running, so I had to put up with a talking head. We had to wait for a recording to be flown across the Tasman from Australia. I guess we must have watched the Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast on our Boxing day 1968.

I was 7 years old at Prep school in 2nd Class and the entire Prep School (years 1-3) sat down in front of a TV to watch Armstrong make history. Unfortunately, landing on the moon disembarking from a Lunar Module to step onto it and getting the TV signal and everything right and ready was not a fast or fluid undertaking so we were forced to wait for what seemed an eternity (especially for a bunch of 6-8 year olds) and although I vividly remember seeing the actual moment that Armstrong stepped out of the module and climbed down the ladder uttering those immortal words and stepping onto the moon's surface, I'm afraid the actual moment and event was lost on me when it happened , my only concern being to be allowed to finally get out , eat lunch and play! After watching the historic event (which was seen by Australia before anyone else as our Radio Dish transmitted most of the signal to the World) we were all issued a special commerative medallion celebrating this achievement (which regetfully, I lost soon after ) and I continued on as a 7 year old and quickly forgot what I had seen. It was only years later that I fully understood and appreciated the huge significance of that moment in 1969 when I watched man land on the Moon, and history being made. Since then I have come to see that event as one of the pivotal moments in Human history and as the very best example of what we can achieve if we focus and use our full potential which the Moon Landing showed is almost limitless.

Worked at Stouffer's Restaurant in Wynnewood, PA and got home just in time to watch with my Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters. We turned out the lights and watched it in the darkened living room.

A future worth waking up excited about. We should reclaim that.

My family gathered around the TV. The big unknown was what would happen when a person stepped foot on the moon. We didn't know if the surface would be hard or soft or what. Then the step & classic words happened. I recall hearing that, at that moment, there was no crime at all on earth, as every human being was riveted upon this mind-boggling historic event.

Camp Highmount in Roscoe NY had no televisions -- as far as I, a lowly 15 year old waiter, knew -- and as the Apollo 11 mission got underway I became increasingly frantic over what would happen Sunday night, the 20th of July. Then one of the families who ran the camp spilled the beans: they had a TV in their cabin, and I was welcome to join them. But even better, the camp owner had a TV in his cabin that was going to be put up on stage in the dining hall, and so the entire camp would be able to watch together. And so around 180 of us, mostly from the five towns on LI, got to see the first moonwalk. It has never failed to cheer me when those kids talk about it today and thank me for pushing the adults to make it happen. For me, the moment was bittersweet: my dad, an engineer in the aerospace industry, had passed away 18 months earlier, and our shared love of all things space was a great bond. I also found the pandering by Nixon in his phone call grating, but was thrilled by the wording on the plaque as Armstrong read it. And for what it's worth, I heard the 'a man' clearly on the original broadcast -- perhaps because it's so obvious in the original moment. You see a man take a small step. He then tells you 'that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' Wilford got it wrong the next morning in the Times.

Oh my - that was a blast from the past. I was in the front living area in my childhood home in Iowa, celebrating the birthday I shared with my great uncle and my father. It was my ninth. The three of us gathered there with other family members including my maternal grandparents to see the action through the snow of the television screen. It was indeed a huge deal. I don’t remember that specific cake or any of my presents but I can still see chairs pulled over from the kitchen and the group of nine family members staring in awe at the screen. Imagine my disbelief when about twenty years later I had a very difficult time convincing many in my second grade class that men had actually walked on the surface of the moon. The most savvy remained certain I was pulling a prank. Maybe the same way they knew Santa was a hoax. And twenty years after that I met many Russians who also believed it was a very elaborate trick. But, I never doubted it.

After watching the moon landing together, my girlfriend at the time and I ........ummmmm...celebrated. It was the first time for us and the first time ever for her. Unfortunately, I suspect the moon landing was more memorable for her.

Armstrong on the moon We were living in Rawlins Wyoming in a large Victorian house that had been converted into apartments. My great grandmother, who was a resident of Iowa and still egg farming at age 90, was brought to Wyoming by her daughter for a visit. Our apartment was a fourth floor upper most loft—a staircase we all climbed. We had a 13 inch black-and-white TV with aluminum foil wrapped around the antennae. My husband and I sat on the floor like kids about to see the latest cartoon. The movement of Armstrong’s feet skipping along the surface of the moon was royalty stepping from a carriage. This was it—the promise of Kennedy kept—Camelot realized! As the broadcast returned to the newsrooms, l jumped up and scurried to great grandma, who was seated in the rocker. Leaning into her I said “Grandma grandma, what you think? A man has just walked on the moon! Did you ever think you would live to see such a thing?“ She squinted at the TV while the playbacks ensued. Then she said to no one in particular, “ Why go all the way to the moon? You can’t grow anything there.” We pretty much spent the rest of the day playing Scrabble.

I was with my family in Kitty Hawk, NC when the Eagle landed. We went home about 1.5 hours away and watched to see the first step. It is a memory of a lifetime. I was a child in the heyday of the space age. The launches and space exploration fascinated me then and the exploration of space still does.

I was 14, a huge SF fan, and thought this was the beginning of the future I'd been reading about for years. We watched it in the family room, which had a big sliding glass door that was to the left if you were facing the TV. I remember that the wait between the LEM touching down and the actual departure onto the surface seemed interminable. They landed in the mid-afternoon and the EVA didn't start until almost 11pm--8 hours maybe? Funny thing is that the memory of that moment, seeing the lo-res, blurry, but distinct image of a space-suited man, Armstrong, at last emerging and descending the ladder is mixed with another that was totally irrelevant yet for that reason solidifies the reality of the moment for me. Something made me glance away from the scene at one point, looking out through the glass door, and sitting only a couple of feet away was a large raccoon, immobile, staring straight into the room, rapt, as if it were as transfixed by what was unfolding as we were.

I'm skeptical about the person who said they took notice of the missing 'a' in real-time and were 'disappointed' in the quote.

I remember standing on a ladder when I heard the news on the radio. I got a chill, thinking mankind reached a zenith with new, unlimited possibilities. Unfortunately, the space race seemed only to give us "Tang", the breakfast drink.

We were all gathered in front of the TV but as it got later and later (I was 9 and we were on the East coast) we were starting to get a bit restless. Nobody noticed my older sister stepping away but then, all of a sudden, out of the darkness behind the TV she appears in a huge all-white hooded parka and these massive snow boots (the kind with big metal buckles). Attached to the parka was a vacuum cleaner hose, still attached on the other end to the little Elextrolux vacuum cleaner rolling on wheels behind her, undoubtedly her oxygen supply unit. While we all remember the real moonwalk that did finally come later that evening, my sister’s visit from space into our living room is actually the more vivid memory!

In the summer of '69 I was 17 and a Junior Ranger with the provincial Department of Lands and Forests in the bush near Sioux Lookout, Ontario. There were no TVs where we were. My memory centers on the launch of Apollo 11, July 16th, heard by a bunch of us JRs on my transistor radio while we lounged at dockside in a huge freight canoe, basking in the warm morning sunshine. As for Neil Armstrong's first step on the evening of July 20th, I heard that on my little radio too, through a tiny earphone, after lights out in the work gang bunkhouse. I whispered the exciting news to the other guys, and the murmur of our voices drew the ire of our supervisor. "If you don't all shut up right now," he yelled from his room, "you're going to be sorry!" The man had zero interest in the moonwalk - this great historical moment. But we boys sure did. It was a special and memorable time.

I was in Mexico with my girlfriend. We had driven from San Francisco to Acapulco and were returning. We stopped my Volkswagen bug and put a portable radio on the roof while we listened to Walter Cronkite describing the landing on the moon. We were alone, listening and looking up a the huge moon itself hanging above our heads in this somewhat primitive environment, which made the experience all the more powerful. We then drove on and found an impossibly small town that appeared to have only one television. We joined everyone else from town in a tiny gas station building where we all watched the foot hitting the moon's surface. Next June will be 50 years that I've been with that girlfriend. It's all in my Hollywood Memoir...https://insidethestarwarsempire.com/

Neil Armstrong stepping down on the moon and saying that's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind made me proud to be a human being and proud of the human race!

I was 11 and i took a photo of that moment with my flashless camera. I am so surprised it came out as i had never taken an indoor photo before. There is the TV tube with that chyron on it saying "ARMSTRONG ON MOON".

My 7 brothers and sisters, parents and grandfather were crowded around our small portable TV set in our basement. I was sitting next to my grandfather. This was a man who had been born in 1890 and raised on a farm in County Tyrone, Ireland. He was an Irish immigrant who left his mother and father at the age of 20 to come to America. They communicated regularly through letters, but he never saw them again and had never returned. He had never flown in a plane - an expense like that was not even considered & flying was still considered exorbitant. He’d witnessed many things over his 78 years but the moon landing seemed to overwhelm him with an emotion that was palpable, as we watched Neil Armstrong descend to the surface. “Glory be to God” was all my grandfather could say through his tears. “Glory be to God.” Throughout my life, whenever I see pictures or videos of that day, it brings me back to that moment of seeing it through the eyes of my grandfather.

It was a wondrous moment. It still is. A shining example of all that humanity can do when it is not busy warring and back-biting each other in futile squabbles of ignorance. Would that we return to such dreams. John~ American Net'Zen

I had just started college and was attending summer school at the University of Hawaii, living in the Johnson Hall dorm on Dole Street. We had gathered in the common area to watch the one tv we had there. There was tension and silence in the room and in the air. When the door of the LEM as it was called then, I ran to the pay phone to call my then girlfriend and now wife so we could experience the moment together. A 3 minute call to the mainland cost $3.00 + $1.00 per minute thereafter so I was cheering Armstrong to get the heck down the ladder fast before my quarters ran out. He made it just as I was putting my last 4 quarters in the slot. A very special moment in a very special time, successfully doing something incredibly difficult and making us feel proud and patriotic not with our mouths, but with our deeds. I hope to see another moment like that before I leave.

I was only 13 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I had such a crush on Neil Armstrong because I thought he was the cutest astronaut there ever was. I remember running outside and waving, thinking maybe he might see me from space. (This was a big deal for the country and the world, and an exceptionally HUGE deal for farmers like us). I recall my mother crying the moment she saw Mr. Armstrong bouncing on the moon in July of 1969. I recall shedding a few tears when I heard of his passing in August of 2012. A great man. A great Apollo crew and team. A great and exceptional space program. There was hardly an American who was not proud to be one during that era. Somehow, it seems and feels a lot longer than only 50 years ago.

Memory is mysterious, but it seems like a lot of people's recollections here make it sound like the landing was in the evening darkness or "wee hours". It happened at 3:17pm EST. My own memory of it is both strong and blurry. I don't remember that there were images at the exact moment, just the sound of Armstrong's and NASA's transmissions...and everyone holding their breath.

That summer I was at an NSF six (or was it eight) week camp at Ohio State, focused on engineering, learning FORTRAN, staying in a dorm, with ~40 young men and~7 young women. I was one of those young women. Away from home in Minnesota. We all watched the landing on a single tv set up in the basement of the women's dorm. I remember the landing and the discussions we had about it. Inspiring us all. I came back to OSU a little over a year later, graduating in four years with a degree in mechanical engineering. Two years after the landing, i was the counselor for the same NSF program. Dated my soon to be husband, also studying engineering, married almost 47 years now. I spent a career in engineering. The landing was an experience that provided a lot of glue to my pursuits, bonding career, marriage, and what I do in my retirement years, similar experiences for young people. It affected my whole life at many levels.

I walked out to look a the moon and tried to imagine the distance that had been made so close on TV. I was 15 and it opened my imagination to what could be done.

My parents owned a mom & pop bakery. The only time we could take a family vacation was in the summer, when the bakery business slowed. On these annual road trips, we stayed in Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges. And so it was in a motel room that six of us gathered to watch the moon walk on tv. I don't remember my siblings' reactions, but I do remember my dad's. He was grinning and saying 'I just can't believe it' over and over; this a man whose own father felt that the invention of refrigeration changed his life.

I was 18, working in my first job in a small suburban bank branch in Australia. The manager brought in a black and white tv set, and set it up in the customer area. Everything stopped, as staff and customers watched the grainy video from so far away.

I was in the Air Force during that time, at a base involved in the project. Even though my role was small, nothing I have ever done since has been as important or satisfying as that.

It was late at night on the East Coast and my parents wondered whether we small kids would stay awake for those first steps. They needn't have worried: We were glued to our TV from before the landing until the astronauts, both of them, stepped out onto the Moon's surface hours later. It's still an indelible memory.

I was flying into New Orleans on military leave and the pilot/co-pilot kept up a running commentary on what was happening. As we were taxiing to the terminal we were advised to leave our bags for a moment on the carousel and head to the main terminal were the landing was happening on wide-screen tv. There was utter silence until "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." then cheers and clapping. More silence as we waited for Armstrong to descend, then an even louder ovation. Still a magic moment...

I was 7 years old at the time. While I remember the grainy footage, what stuck in my mind were the "giant leap for mankind". Like many 7 year olds, I was literal-minded, and the oddness of that statement struck me -- and stayed with me for days. I could NOT understand how a small step to the ground could possibly be any kind of giant leap! (I learned...)

I am wondering when we started to say, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we cure cancer? Or any other why can't we...? I was working on a Ute Reservation that summer. We didn't have a TV but we all stared up at the moon and used our imagination.

Three of my seven cousins were born that day, so the extended family watched the moonlanding in a hospital waiting room. It felt like these babies were entering a new and fundamentally changed world.

I will always remember that day. It was broadcast "live" (a treat in those days. I was 15 years old, and it was the first time I ever tried beer. The name of it was "Black Label" beer; the only time I ever tried it (I have never been a beer fan). I was with my sister and her husband in Meridian, Miss. He was an Air Controller, stationed at the Naval Air Base located there. I always wondered why the US Navy had a landlocked Air Base. Go figure. It was a great evening, however. I was a member of The Shreveport Astronomical Society, and had been for almost 3 years. To this day, I have always been intrigued by astronomy. There was no light pollution like there is now, plus our local branch (in Louisiana) had a large telescope in the middle of a soybean field. The sky was beautiful then.

I was a 17 year old with a passion for science; working as a camp counselor in remote central Ontario. We no access to radio or TV and were only vaguely aware of the moon landing. One night the whole camp stayed up well past lights out time to watch a single TV set up on the mess hall lawn. About 200 kids stood in a muddle on a warm night, with the loons calling from the lake and a fuzzy black and white picture showing Walter Cronkite and some simulated landing maneuvers. Then it happened - a man't boot on a ladder and that memorable first comment. I was amazed and immediately looked up to see the bright silver moon. It was no longer so remote. People were up there. The Sea of Tranquility was suddenly visible and men were on it! Of all the wonderful things that mankind has accomplished, visiting other worlds, either in person or via robot explorer is our most amazing and enduring legacy. It is what our generation will be remembered for.

It was a day the whole world could take pride in. To this day I tear up when I hear "Tranquility Base here" For the first time ever, we were somewhere else. The big first baby step. Anyone wanting to listen again, it's here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_audio.html You can catch mission control reminding the astronauts that there was 60 seconds worth of fuel left to complete the landing. Details, details! If anyone has too much free time, another 19,000 hours of audio has been recovered from old tapes. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-university-of-texas-at-dallas-reveal-a... I remember also the documentary "For All Mankind" about the moon program - favorite bit was the credit "filmed on location"

I was 17 years old and living in Phoenix and it was very early in the wee hours of the morning. My father woke me up shortly before the descent phase started and my parents and I watched. As a space geek, this was the most important day of my life. It was the most important day in the history of the planet. The tension was immense. As that landing occurred the words "Contact light" followed by "Shutdown" and other checklist items to confirm engine off and stable. Then... "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The eagle has landed." As I write this my eyes are wet with tears, exactly as they were that day so long ago. As was Walter Cronkite, and pretty much every person on the planet. "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. "Up, up the long delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, where never lark, or even eagle, flew; and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God." -John Gillespie Magee

I was counseling in a camp in upstate New York, a rather isolated place, and didn't find out about the moon landing until a few days later when, upon entering the administration building's reception room I saw a days old copy of the Daily News with the cover story, Man Walks On Moon.

My grandmother, who was born in the 1890s, commented, "In my lifetime, I've seen the Wright brothers make the first flight, and men walk on the moon."

I watched the the first moonwalk with my father in our den. I dont remember where my mother and my sister were that night. The black and white TV pictures from the moon were very static-y as Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder and said his famous speech. I didn't catch his grammatical error and thought it was the greatest event in history that mankind finally got off the earth and to another body in the solar system.

I was at Girl Scout camp in the mountains of New Mexico. At that time, TV signals roughly approximated our current cell phone experience. They gathered us all in the big dining hall to watch the landing on a tiny TV that barely showed the picture through all the static. But I will never forget the experience and the contrast of our circumstances (minimal technology even by the standards of the time) with what we were watching unfold hundreds of thousands of miles away.

I was 17. I watched with my family. I looked outside thru the picture window of our suburban home to see the cold glow emanating from the other picture windows in the neighborhood. I remember Walter Cronkite saying just before the historic moment that they estimated that fully one half of all people on earth were at that moment watching this unfold live on TV. That blew my mind.

I was 14 years old, a serious science fiction fan, and wanted to be an astronaut even though I was a girl. One of my mother's many hobbies was oil painting. During the coverage of the moon landing, she set me up with an easel, canvas, and palette in front of the TV in our family room in the basement -- my first and last time painting with oils. I remember the awe and envy I experienced as I watched every single minute I could of the mission and the landing. The painting, an abstract of reds and golds resembling an out of control fire, hung for years in the family room in the basement. Nearly 40 years later my mother died and we hired an auctioneer to clear out some of the antiques and collectibles in the basement from my mothers second career as a dealer. When I discovered they had taken my painting, I drove out to the auctioneer's site and they had it displayed. My mother would have been so proud! I retrieved my painting and it's hanging still in my den. Every time I look at it, I'm 14 years old again, watching that small step that held so much promise.

I was exactly 12 and a half years old, and fascinated by science. Our family had a telescope, and I spent many hours looking up into the dark night skies over central Illinois farmland, identifying constellations. My parents, myself and my next oldest sister were glued to the tv that night. Being allowed to stay up so late was a treat, and I will never forget the moment Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. We were silent; mesmerized and in sheer wonder at what we were seeing. Years later, while serving in the US Air Force, I was able to see the first landing of the space shuttle at Edwards AFB in California, from a great distance using high powered binoculars. At that time, I couldn't help but reflect on seeing Armstrong's first step on the moon, and how things had come full circle.