Historic mission left space cadets over the moon

“WE choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

The words are those of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The year is 1962. The place: Houston, Texas.

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Spoken by Neil Armstrong. The date is July 20, 1969. The place: 6 Grattan Hill, Wellington Terrace, in Cork.

A boy, barely in his teens, is sitting up in bed at 3am in striped pyjamas, transfixed by the ghostly flicker of the black and white television.

He has to get up for school in a few hours, but who cares? This is history in the making. It is also enormous fun.

He has been gazing at the screen for hours, occasionally adjusting the "rabbit's ears" and saw a bulky faded figure makes a hesitant descent on what looks like a makeshift ladder, the kind of thing his mother might use to wallpaper her son's bedroom.

He holds his breath and watches as the world changes forever.

At 10:56pm Easter Standard Time July 20, 1969, watched Neil Armstrong become the first human to set foot on the moon. The journey had taken four days.

After lift-off, the Apollo spacecraft reached Earth parking orbit after 11 minutes. After one and a half orbits the Saturn thrusters fired and the astronauts began their odyssey.

The boy hadn't done his schoolwork but he had done his space homework. He had long ago plotted on his school notebook the trajectory required to get to the moon.

He had done all that with the help of his very own NASA pen pals one of them Armstrong, the other a man called Edwin Aldrin, better known as "Buzz" and Michael Collins, commander of the lunar module.

Two years before, he had begun writing to them, asking for photos, information, anything to sate a schoolboy's appetite for space exploration.

"Don't expect too much," his father warned. "You could end up disappointed. They are very busy men and may not even get to see your letters."

For once, Dad was wrong. The letters came flying back with regularity. Mostly they were typed but they were real letters, real responses.

He and the astronauts were soon on first name terms. The last communication before Apollo 11 included a request from Neil, Buzz and Michael. "Please keep us in your prayers." He assured them he would.

Armstrong soon made his fateful descent into history and about 19 minutes later he was joined by Aldrin, who described the "magnificent desolation" of the surface.

The footprints left by the astronauts on the Sea of Tranquility are more permanent than most solid structures on Earth. Barring a chance meteorite impact, those impressions in the lunar soil will last for millions of years.

For those space cadets who, like myself, witnessed the event on television, the spirit of those pioneers will live on, whatever the fallout from the latest tragedy.

It would be a terrible pity if the most tangible legacy to their achievements should be a faded flag and the dusty imprint of an astronaut's boot.