02:56 UTC - THE MOMENT THAT THE WHOLE WORLD WATCHED HISTORY UNFOLD ON TELEVISION - THE MOON LANDING - ALMOST EVERY BROADCASTER ON EARTH - 7/20/69

 

 

Tonight , billions of people around the globe will look up at the night sky and ,  perhaps, they will notice the Moon, glowing in among the stars.

 

A comparative fraction will stop to recall that on this date in 1969, at 10:56 PM EDT, 02:56 UTC, and 109420 into the mission of APOLLO 11, Commander Neil Armstrong descended the ladder from

The Lunar Module EAGLE to become the first human being in history to set foot on another celestial body.

 

It was the night that Americans walked on the Moon.

 

At that electrifying moment on that steamy summer night, 44 years ago, an estimated 600 million people  watched television in homes and churches and bars and union halls and in parks and on beaches. Television took us from the launch pad , to mission control , to the white house and to the Moon.

 

Video Viewers  who watched through the night, saw  the grainy, jittery images of Armstrong , who, sadly,  passed away in 2102  and  Lunar Module Pilot ,Buzz Aldrin ,on television as they surveyed the Sea of Tranquility. Aldrin called the Moon a place of "magnificent desolation."

 

The third member of the APOLLO 11 team, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins orbited the moon , as his partners walked it's surface. For a period, as he guided the ship around the dark side of Earth's only , natural satellite, he was out of communications contact with his colleagues and with NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas

 

In the hours that followed the amazing moonwalk, citizens of the world put aside their  political, religious and social differences to celebrate the realization of a dream as old as mankind.

 

I have not heard much on this 44th anniversary of this daring , dazzling accomplishment, which fulfilled the mandate of a martyred President .It was  John Kennedy who set the goal of putting a man on the moon  before end of the 1960's.The American Lunar landing all but ended the so-called RACE FOR SPACE, with , what was then the worlds only other Super Power, the Soviet Union.

 

Tonight, we should take a moment to honor those who walked the powdery lunar landscape, reflect on this superlative achievement and wonder when mankind can reach for its most noble dreams and the stars , again.

 

Here , from the ZELCO321 YOU TUBE site, is an excerpt of ABC NEWS coverage of this wondrous moment.

 

Enjoy!!!