Space Race

Today is the 48th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. 

I remember it well even though I was only 6 years old at the time. Even at such a young age the Space Race had really caught my imagination as it would to many of my generation born into the rapidly developing technologies of the late 1960's. 

I have a strong visual image of the televised coverage of the moment that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon even though on my parent's grainy black and white valve operated TV set it was very difficult to make out what was actually going on. 

That memory after all of these years is in fact a false one because it turns out that the actual event took place at 03.56 am British Time making it impossible for me to have seen it first hand and as a live broadcast. Although I usually had to be in bed by 6pm on a weekday the 20th July fell on a Sunday but even so that very early hour would have made me unbearably grumpy and irritable for the whole day if I had been conscious. 

There had been a big build up to the small but momentous step with all three of the only British channels of that time providing regular bulletins and features for 8 days starting from 16th July 1969. The Radio Times magazine for that period had a striking graphic to interest and excite the viewing public. 

A big effort was made with a combination of studio based programmes from the BBC and ITV, the latter commercial station producing the longest hours and with updates from Mission Control at Cape Canaveral in the United States. 

Even though there was, until the time of the landing, no footage of space or from the surface of the moon the programmers across the UK networks were able to fill up many hours of broadcast time with a mixture of expert commentary and a lot of mainstream entertainment from established stars, celebrities and personalities. 

I do not recall seeing any of the features which on the BBC included a specially commissioned instrumental piece by Pink Floyd, moon related poetry and quotes by Ian McKellen, Judi Dench and Michael Hordern and what must have been the first associated use of Bowie's Space Oddity which had only been released as a 7 inch single in the fortnight before. 

ITV summoned all of their own talent to the coverage including Peter Cook, Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Lulu and Eric Sykes. 

In all it was an historic milestone for UK television with the first ever all night airing, the first time that the National Anthem was not played at the usual close to midnight shut down. 

The landing could not be guaranteed to run to an exact timing schedule because of the complexities of the mission and the technology including beaming of images back to earth. 

The presenter James Burke proved invaluable in being able to provide informed comment to fill in potential embarrassing silent sections when nothing was seen to be happening. The on screen graphics and models would seem a bit basic to the computer generated CGi that we are used to today but were nevertheless regarded as cutting edge in their day.

One technicality that had to be addressed was that the first images from the moon were upside down, so engineers on Earth operated an electronic switch on receiving the signal to correct the picture. Sadly, hardly any of the footage of the TV space marathon has survived as it was normal practice for tapes to be wiped for subsequent use. 

For several hours after the landing the pictures were shown as edited highlights and these are likely to be the ones that I remember so well, aged 6.

Because of all of the fascination and excitement that the 1969 moonwalk created for me I did not hesitate about 2 years ago to pledge support for the restoration of Neil Armstrong's Space Suit. 

My £30 towards a target total of $500000 was just one amongst nearly 9500 other supporters and with that piece of history expected to be ready for a major exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary in 2019.

By my rough and ready reckoning that makes me the proud sponsor of a rivet.