MTFCA Forum

We all know its half a century since Apollo 11 did its thing. And what a fabulous thing it was too.

I was 18 years and 18 days old when I left work on an early lunch break to watch Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moons surface. As the only other TV I had access to was at home, several miles away, I had to walk a couple of blocks up the main street of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales to watch it all unfold on a B&W TV in a shop window. I stood there for well over an hour, completely absorbed by the slow moving event, but I wasn't alone, there were about 20 or 30 of us watching. The shop (A music store called "The Clef") had mounted speakers outside so we could hear it all too.

So now you know where this Aussie was on this momentous day in history, Where were you?

Cheers,
Rob

Cant say for sure but I will bet mom was close. I was 1 year and 5 days old.

Rob I was 18 years and 32 days old. My girlfriend at the time and I had returned to her house and the moonwalk was on TV. We watched most of it and then had a snack. I'm still having snacks with her 48 years later.

As a 12 yr old at the time, I was with my family watching this on a black and white TV. I actually took a Polaroid photo of the tv with the screen showing Armstrong as he just stepped onto the lunar surface. I still have that photograph.

I was about 21 1/2 years old and in the U.S. Navy. At the time I was stationed in Naha, Okinawa working for CFAW1, CTF72 (Commander Fleet Air Wing 1, Commander Task Force 72). I spent my days in the Operational Control Center helping coordinate P-3 Orion aircraft in their anti-submarine patrols from Iwakune, Japan to Bangkok, Thailand. We also had CUSTPF (Commander U.S. Taiwan Patrol Force) activity at the time, which consisted of destroyers patrolling the Taiwan Straight.

Lot's of tension back then. The moon shot gave us something important to smile about.

That summer, my parents bought the farm, and although I remember watching the
moon landing on TV somewhere, we were going back and forth 2000 times over the
20 miles between our old place and the farm with loads of "stuff". It would not be
long before I discovered Model T's and other early cars hiding in nearby barns, fields,
and woods around the farm and "the sickness" took a turn for the worse.

School, paper routes, mowing lawns, pruning orchards, haying, and general farm
help soon became a way of life and seeking out/saving of old junk became a full time
madness, when I wasn't stringing barbed wire, feeding critters, or cleaning the barn.

I was 4 and not yet started school.
I vaguely recall watching with my family in the living room. I remember the later moon missions, we watched in the classroom.

All of those initial television images you got to see came through the Honeysuckle Creek ACT & Parkes NSW dishes here in Australia.

The images of the landing was received in Parkes and televised worldwide. But the dish was right down on a very low angle just as the winds became unacceptably high, so they switched over and the images of the first steps were received at Honeysuckle Creek, just south of Canberra.

A year later I was registered for National Service and readying myself for Vietnam.

Rob

I was in Castro Valley, CA. I was getting ready to become a freshman at CVHS. My Dad was on the USS Hancock CVA 19 in the Gulf of Tonkin. I’m glad the moon landing was in black and white, our Admiral portable TV was too.

I was 5 and a couple months, which is fine, it's far important to me now than then I suspect.
Completely off the cuff from Neil Armstrong apparently: "One small... step for man.............one giant leap for mankind." Beep
We all can still hear it in our heads. The coolest.

I remember watching it on my girlfriend's parent's TV, but why I was at Teri's house that day, I don't remember. I do remember she was saying that looking up at the moon wasn't the same now that we've landed there. Also we went to her neighbor's house where he had a twin pair of home-built reflector telescopes set up to work like binoculars. Yes, at that distance, binocular vision doesn't work, but that was his idea. it probably was pretty cool for folks with binocular vision. Since I've always had monocular vision (I only use one eye at a time) it was just an interesting curiosity to me.
I do remember that watching it was something I wanted to remember as it would be significant in the future. Of course, back then we thought we'd keep going to the moon and onto Mars, but just like the flying cars we were promised, it hasn't happened yet.

We were at the family campground with most of my family and my grandfather had bought one of the first portable color TVs for the occasion, we were all sitting outside while my grandfather put this TV on the doorsill of his caravan, we were all looking up at the moon, while awaiting the start of the transmission, turns out it was all black'n white, that really p***ed off my gramps

I was living in Austin, Texas, with my Wife and two kids. I was determined to watch this Show in color. We had a small, probably 12", black and white TV with the Rabbit Ear antennae, ran a wire over to a window screen for better reception. I started looking for a used color set, the system was still so new they were hard to find.. Finally found one that was over a hundred dollars, but I was determined. I knew the Wife would get on me for doing it, but I signed all the paper work, put myself in hock for a year, and took it home. Well, you know the rest of the story, the Show was in black and white. We had an old Siamese cat that liked to sleep on top of it, it was warm. The on-off switch was on top, pull it out to run, and the cat would always lay down on that switch, and when things were interesting, he would roll over and turn it off. I bought a brand new color TV at Wally World recently, 32", for $80 and change, lots of water under the bridge since the Moon Walk.