On July 20, 1969 I sat with my family in our living room and watched the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. It was the last time I would sit and watch a space shot with my family. On this day we were all there. My mom and Dad, Kate and Bob Barnett, and my sisters, Sarah and Janice, and my grandmother (Mom's mom) Alma Williams. Plus myself. We were thrilled to think that a man was going to walk on the moon. We watched the television intently and heard the words "That's One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Man Kind".
I don't remember what any of us actually said. I wish I did. I do remember my mom was crocheting squares for an afgan and put in a couple of extra stiches that she said was to remind her off what happened and what she was doing that day. I am not sure what happened to that afgan.
This ritual started back on February 20, 1962 when John Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission to become the first American to orbit the earth. He was the fifth person to in space and the third American in space. I was 11 years old when John Glenn took his flight. I remember being woke up by my parents at what I thought was very early hour of about 7:30 am (I remember it was still dark, and I never got up before sunrise, but it was winter) and couldn't believe I was being told to go watch television. My sisters, ages 7 and 5 sat on the sofa with me as we wondered what was so wonderful we had to watch it and why it came on so early. At that time I didn't have much concept of time zones. Officialy it was 9:47 am Eastern Time when "Lift Off" happened. My dad was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base near Los Vegas, NV and we lived in a house on the base.
I guess my dad was really thought the world was going to be up in space soon. He tried to explain to us that a man, John Glenn, was going to make history that day by going into space to orbit the earth. My parents thought it was very important that we watch this happen. I remember thinking it was interesting but why so early. I'm not sure what my sisters thought. We were told the flight was so early because the space ship would take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The fact that their time was 2 hours ahead of didn't make much since to us. We learned about time zones that day as well as space flights. We did understand when we were told that was when the weather would be best for the spaceship to lift off. We sat and watched the spaceship go into space, dozed on the sofa for a while, had breakfast and --- well I don't remember if it was a school day or not. I do remember watching a film of the splash down of the space capsule and seeing John Glenn come out of it. John Glenn was in flight for 5 hours and circled the earth 3.
After that first time we got up and watched each time there was a showing of a spacecraft "Lift Off" or splash down which I continued to do even after I left home. And, yes, I remember watching and being horrified when the spaceship Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. Plus I watched as many of the space shuttle lift off and landings as I could.
Of course it didn't hurt that my sisters and I became big Star Trek fans when the show came on. I never got into reading that much science fiction but I did like the show and then the movies. I believe that the space flights and Star Trek influenced a lot of people to go into science which may be why we have advanced so fast and into so many different science fields in our generation.
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