Man on the moon - A reminiscence

S Balakrishnan *

The whole school had assembled in the open courtyard in pin drop silence. The public address system was playing the live radio commentary of First Landing of Man on the Moon. Probably it was Voice of America (VOA) through the Short Wave (SW) band or our own All India Radio that relayed it along with its own commentary.

Looking back, I think it was an ingenious idea to relay the historical event through the PA system from the radio at Head Master's room ! That was on 20th July 1969; at 8.26 am (IST), Neil Armstrong descended from the ladder and set his foot on Moon's surface and declared "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Was it a spontaneous announcement or a well rehearsed one ? Chances are the latter.

As a boy just into the IX standard, I could not follow the (American Yankee) English; I am sure even the teachers would not have understood much of it. Anyhow we felt happy for the extracurricular activity away from the mundane classroom teaching. Oh, well, I was at St John's High School in Palayamkottai near Tirunelveli Town, down south in Tamil Nadu.

High schools then had classes up to SSLC (11th standard); this was followed by one-year Pre-University Course (PUC) in colleges and then 3-year degree course of your choice. It was indeed a novel idea on school's part and a new experience on the students' side.

Someone joked if Armstrong encountered an enterprising Malayalee (Keralite) running a tea stall on the moon, having landed even before Armstrong himself ! Did Armstrong find a granny frying crispy vadas on the moon, as we used to narrate to adamant tiny tots while stuffing food into their mouth.

Jokes apart, some were skeptical of man's (especially Americans') landing on the moon. They said it was fake, a hoax played with the help of Hollywood filmy tricks. The USSR, USA's sworn enemy, was burning with envy of this great achievement because USSR astronaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to reach space with Sputnik rocket on April 12, 1961, eight years earlier.

But an estimated 500 million people worldwide had watched this event, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at that time. Television! ? What television ? I had not even heard of it then ! Still there were many doubts like why there was no dust when Eagle landed or took off from moon, how the US flag looked like wavering in the wind, etc. To all these, NASA had credibly clarified. This can be read even now from https://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/FirstLunarLanding/ch-5.html

As a curious boy I had been collecting newspaper photographs of the Apollo 11 Mission to prepare an album (nowadays it is fashionably called scrapbook). Though my mother was happy of my scientific pursuit (!), she was also upset that the scrap value of the newspaper with so many gaping holes would be less.

We were buying the Tamil daily 'Dinamani' (presently of the New Indian Express Group). In those days newspapers carried only black & white photographs which I pasted in the album with the help of cooked rice. When my scientific quest had diminished, I presented this proud album to my little cousin Kumar. Wish I had retained it as an antique collection. Of course, nowadays you get everything at the click of the mouse.

Our Postal Department was slow in honouring this breakthrough event. It was only on 19th Nov. of that year, four months later, a 20 np (naya paise) monochrome stamp was issued in dull brown colour. It was a craze to posses this stamp then.

My father, who himself was a philatelic collector, had brought this from his office mail. I urged him to bring more of this stamp which I exchanged for some foreign stamps. The secret deal was struck with two of my Sourashtra classmates during class hours, hiding the stamps in the textbooks.

Now for the Mission in a nutshell-The Apollo 11 crew comprised of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr. On July 20 at 4:18 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time -EDT- is 4 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), while IST is 5.30 hours ahead of UTC.

EDT time zone is a daylight saving time zone used in North America and other countries), the Lunar Module 'Eagle' touched down on the Moon at Tranquility Base. And at 10.56 pm EDT, Armstrong descended on the moon mouthing the famous quote.

After 20 minutes Aldrin was off the Eagle craft and they both addressed the watching world: "Here men from the planet earth first set foot on the moon July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind." In the present times, even space has become a war zone. Before a live television camera which they set up on the surface, they performed their assigned tasks.

Man's first dramatic venture on the lunar surface ended at 1.54 pm EDT, July 21 when Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from the Moon on a tower of flame. They rejoined Eagle to Columbia in which Collins had waited for them in lunar orbit. After entering Columbia, Eagle was abandoned and left adrift. The astronauts then fired their service module rocket to break from the Moon's gravitational grip and head for home.

They reached Earth's vicinity at a speed of about 25,000 mph ! Then they threaded their way into its atmosphere to avoid burning up or bouncing back into space and finally, with parachutes billowing, landed in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Hawaii at 12.51 pm EDT, July 24.

If only I had kept up my zest for scientific pursuit (other than readying a scrapbook by cutting & pasting), this world would have had the first astronaut to land on the Sun!