REX - Regional Express

historyfocus One giantleap Former employees of the Canberra and Parkes tracking stations recount their involvement in the 1969 moon landing when humankind took a legendary leap into space. Oliver Pfeiffer reports. I t was July 21, 1969 (AEST). The Eagle had landed and the team at the Apollo 11 communications facility near Canberra had relayed the live recording of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon to about 600 million viewers around the world. "I remember the trip home in the car," says Bryan Sullivan, former senior technician at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station. "Usually we would talk about news and current affairs, but this time we sat silently, staring out the window, wrapped up in our own thoughts. We were all thinking about the ramifications of what we'd just seen." Most of us have seen the grainy black-and-white recording of the moon landing and can recite Armstrong's famous exclamation: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." And many of us have seen the Australian hit film, The Dish (2000). However, we can only imagine what it must have been like to play such an instrumental part in that 1969 mission to the moon. Honeysuckle Creek: the coup Upon landing on the moon, Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were scheduled to have a four-hour sleep, and Goldstone Tracking Station in California was set to relay images of the moonwalk. This changed, however, when the crew of Apollo 11 decided they wanted to start exploring the lunar surface immediately upon landing. "We heard that Armstrong was talking about an early moonwalk," Sullivan recalls. "Suddenly, the spotlight was on Honeysuckle Creek, as we were in the strongest position to be able to pick up the television signals. We were centre stage! We didn't have time to absorb that, though, as we had to ensure we had everything covered." Hamish Lindsay, who wrote Tracking Apollo to the Moon, was a technical support supervisor at Honeysuckle Creek. "On the morning of the landing it was freezing-cold outside with passing sleet showers," he recalls. "While we were in the middle of tests, Prime Minister Gorton arrived and I dropped everything to photograph his visit. "After he left, the atmosphere in the room was charged with tension as the moment approached. To us, the television broadcast was not as important as the medical, engineering and navigation data. But, of course, the outside world was hung up on pictures coming from the moon." Despite the pressure, Lindsay and his colleagues experienced no operational problems during that pivotal moment, providing the world with footage of Armstrong's historic first step on the moon. "We heard that Armstrong was talking about an early moonwalk. Suddenly, the spotlight was on Honeysuckle Creek … We were centre stage!" 78

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