That’s One Small Step For Man…Leading up to the Apollo 11 Launch
On March 6, 2014
- TV History
That’s One Small Step For Man…
Leading up to the July 16, 1969 launch of Apollo 11, and continuing through their July 24th return, the eyes of the entire world were fixed on the three men seen here in a live interview with an unknown network. From left to right is Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins…the crew of Apollo 11. Armstrong was the first man to ever set foot on the moon, followed by Aldrin with Collins in the orbiting command module. These two GE PE 250s could be in the NASA building in Houston, but I think they are at NASA in Florida. NBC’s Houston affiliate had 250s, but so did some of the locally used auxiliary mobile units in Florida. Many thanks to our friend Martin Perry in Dallas for the photo.
I like the monitor balanced on top of the overturned waste basket – necessity is the mother of invention.
Those G.E.’s made so-so pictures…..but the zoom control was excellent for its time.
I wonder if NASA might have used their own cameras in this situation to keep the quarantine stronger?
Very nice behind the scenes picture. I loved watching anything I could about the space program when I was just a kid. I loved everything and anything about the space program and watched anything that was on the only four channels we had back in the day…..!
Great camera for their day. Simple to use and very low matience -except when you ran out of chroma jelly.
Deke would also wake up the guys on launch day and have breakfast with them. His autobiography, “Deke!”, paints a great picture of the man and, in turn, the space race.
I believe that the man sitting to the left is Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts and head of the Astronaut office for many years.