Readers share memories of landing

ran back and forth to the galley to watch the whole landing. Well worth the effort.

Sigh of relief

I was the wife of a structural design engineer involved with the design of the lunar module for Grumman in Bethpage, N.Y. He worked long hours and never complained. It went on for years until 1969, when they all sighed a sigh of relief to see it land on the moon. My husband, Henry Pallmeyer, was one of the men involved in the struts that were the first things to feel the surface of the moon. They worked, and all of us were so happy. He died in 2010, still proud of the years spent as an engineer.

In Thailand, disbelief

In July 1969, I was serving in the U. S. Air Force at a base in northeast Thailand. When I learned that the United States had successfully landed men on the moon, I was filled with pride and exhilaration. I eagerly shared this news with the Thai people that I knew. In virtually every case, their response was disbelief. I continued trying to convince them that, at the very moment we were looking at the moon, there were actually Americans walking on it. They continued to look at me as if I had horns growing from my head.

Dad missed Apollo 11

Everyone has a memory of the earth-shaking event of a human on the moon. For me, my mind was in a fog. My father died suddenly one month earlier due to suicide. Our family all shared one mindset: Dad had missed it. How would we revel in it without him? We consoled each other saying he was watching from God’s dominion and knows the elation of such discoveries. He was a math and science teacher and space exploration was his lifelong excitement. He followed Apollo and knew the plan for the moon landing. He was just not with us for the amazing event.

Feeling doubly blessed

The moon landing in July 1969 is doubly memorable for me: Not only did brave astronauts land on the moon, but my brave husband returned safely home after almost a year in Vietnam. Neither event was a sure thing. But, by the grace of God, both events transpired. Those two events always will be associated in my mind. I am doubly blessed.

Terri View

Scent of newsprint

The day after the moon landing, my younger sister, Marcia, and I drove to a newsstand in downtown Orlando (I can still smell the scent of tobacco and newsprint) where we bought all the ‘Man on Moon’ newspapers. I still have all of those newspapers.

From a mountaintop

I was 13. We were on top of a mountain in a pop-up tent camper in a campground in Maine. We never took a TV on vacation — in those days even a “portable” TV was challenging to carry around — but I insisted that we take it with us on this trip. We could not miss this event. And so we watched from that mountaintop. I was mesmerized and stayed awake well into the night watching the entire thing.

Sally Andrews

1st launch to Apollo 11

As a local resident all my life, I have had the good fortune to observe the space program from its early roots. I went to school at Orlando High School and used to run track with future astronaut John Young. You could tell he was a very smart student back then. I was also fortunate to witness the very first launch from the Cape, around 1949. I was working on the roof of a small beach house in Cape Canaveral and got a great view of the launch. I did watch the Apollo 11 launch from outside the launch site. It was a very exciting time for any American and I was later lucky to watch and photograph the first shuttle launch from the camera line.

Allen Arthur