They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin 20 Jul 2015 08:12:19pm
re: Anniversary of The Walk on the Moon
I was in a hospital bed in a spica (half body) cast. One of the very few bright spots of that summer for me.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke"
Geepers, Tom. What were we 25 miles away from each other? You should have let me know. Wouldn't have done any good, though. I was only 14 and didn't know you.
Home in Toronto, glued to the giant console TV. I was three and less than a half; but I still remember the whole family watching mesmerized at that truly giant leap.
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""If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." Rush"
At home in Columbia, Missouri, shortly after graduation from the University of Missouri. We too stayed up all night.
Susan took special interest in it because in 1966 she had worked in a typing pool at Ryan Aeronautical in San Diego, which had a contract to work on a landing system for the Command Module. Ryan's system was based not he Rogallo Parasail, but in the end parachutes were used. She got the job because Francis Rogallo was a member of the American Kitefliers Association, which my dad founded. She spent most of the summer whiting out "LEM" on engineering documents and retyping "LM" — scuttlebutt had it that some bigwig had complained that "LEM," which stood for "Lunar Excursion Module," made it seem like the astronauts were going on a holiday "excursion".
If I may, the moon landing occurred on July 20th, 1969. The walk on the moon occurred on July 21, six hours after the landing.
There is an interesting story associated with the beautiful Scott C76 commemorating the landing / walk. The stamp was printed from a master die which Armstrong and Aldrin carried with them. And, it was the largest postage stamp the United States had issued up to that time. Its design was 1.80 by 1.05 inches, and its overall size was 1 61/64 by 1 15/64 inches, making it 50 percent larger than conventional U.S. commemoratives. A total of 152,364,800 stamps were printed and distributed.
But most importantly, production of the design and die were carried out in secrecy by officials of the Post Office and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, just as had been done with the Project Mercury commemorative of 1962 (Scott 1193). It wasn't until July 9, 1969, a week before Apollo 11 was launched, that Postmaster General Winton M. Blount disclosed plans for the stamp and its details.
On that date, Blount revealed that the astronauts would take with them the engraved die that later would be used to make the stamp's printing plates, along with a special "Moon letter" bearing a die proof of the stamp. The letter was to be personally postmarked by Armstrong and Aldrin while they were on the moon, but the Apollo 11 crew members forgot about the envelope until they were already on their way back to Earth.
One major color error variety of the stamp (Scott C76a) has been recorded. Missing from some stamps is the offset red used for the flag stripes on Armstrong’s shoulder patch. Shown here is a vertical pair of the stamp, one with the red missing (left) and one normal (right). This pair was sold for $360 at a Jacques C. Schiff Jr. Inc. auction December 11, 1993.
As it happened at 3.56 am London, England time I was fast asleep in bed. It was all over the papers and television the same day, so saw many re-runs in the days that followed.
Vic
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