historyfocus
Background image: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/JPL)
Opposite page,
above and below:
Neil Mason and
Dave Cooke (Parkes
Observatory) with
Stan Lebar (Apollo
Television Cameras);
Honeysuckle
Creek receivers;
subsequent moon
landing of Apollo 15.
Parkes: the Dish
For the CSIRO Parkes Observatory, however, relaying the
event proved to be problematic when nature intervened.
Immortalised in the titular film, The Dish, the observatory
played a key role when Houston switched over to the
images received from Parkes' 64-metre radio telescope
for the remainder of the two-and-a-half-hour broadcast.
Dave Cooke was a radio receiver engineer at Parkes
during the Apollo 11 mission. "We were all pretty keyed
up and a lot of work had gone into anticipating various
contingencies that could occur," he explains. "One
thing we couldn't plan for, however, was the weather!"
"We nearly got blown off the air!" adds Neil Mason,
who, as the telescope operator, had the critical job of
keeping track of the moon as the telescope creaked
against the tyrannical winds. Despite the dangers to the
Dish, the order was given to keep going. "Our director,
John Bolton, was usually one for going by the book, but
I think he realised the momentousness of the occasion,
so we pressed on," Mason says.
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