“EARTHMEN Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin are on the Moon,” began The Northern Echo’s breathless front page of July 21, 1969. “At 9.15pm last night, their landing craft Eagle descended gingerly on to the Moon’s surface while the world waited with its fingers crossed.
“The landing realises the dreams of centuries. For the first time, men actually rest on an alien world.”
Across the gulf of 50 years, you can still feel the momentousness of the occasion.
“Yesterday and today,” said the Echo’s editorial inside the paper, “will be remembered in the history of the Earth – of the Universe – as long as the Earth and the Universe go on.”
That is a hell of a claim, putting the moonlanding on a par with the day a meteor strike wiped out the dinosaurs.
“It is a great achievement by scientists and technicians and by technology itself.
“But most of all it is an achievement by Mankind. The astronauts, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, are braver men than most of us, but they represent us al. We can feel proud today that we are their contemporaries.”
As well as man conquering the Moon, the landing was also about the US conquering Russia. The Space Race between the two great powers had begun in the mid-1950s, with the Russians taking an early lead with the launch of their first Sputnik satellite in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space in 1961.
But US President John F Kennedy, coming to power in 1961, promised that the US would reach the Moon by the end of the decade.
Still the Russians forged ahead – in 1965, they landed the first, unmanned craft on the Moon – but the greater American resources – 400,000 Nasa employees and a budget of $25bn – and determination saw the US triumph 50 years ago this weekend.
It must have been so frustrating for The Northern Echo as when it went to press in the early hours of July 21, nothing was happening on the Moon’s surface and yet it knew the biggest event – the moonwalk – was only moments away.
As it was, it was 3.39am Darlington time (the centre of the universe) that Neil Armstrong opened the landing craft’s hatch door, and bounced slowly down the nine rungs of the ladder. At 3.56am, he made it onto the Moon’s surface, and uttered his immortal words: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The press in Darlington did manage to knock out a few thousand copies of a special edition headlined “3.56am, Monday, July 21, 1969 AD Man stands on the Moon”, but the paper had to wait until the following morning, July 22, 1969, to bring everyone the awesome news.
That historic front page is reproduced here and it contains, truth be told, a rather low quality image – but this is because we are judging it by today’s High Definition standards. At the time, it was a stunning image, filmed on the Moon and relayed in real time back to Earth. The images were picked up by an antenna in New South Wales which fired them on to Nasa but as they were not suitable for TV broadcast, a standard TV camera filmed the screen on which they were appearing, and then transmitted them. It was a lo-fi operation, and so the Echo’s front page picture is a bit grainy.
But it marked a moment of history, and the paper printed four souvenir pages of equally grainy images. “Nine rungs down the ladder and Armstrong first foots the moon,” said the caption on one.
The front page is able to complete the story of the first men on the moon as at 6.54pm on July 21, 1969, after a stay of 21 hours and 36 minutes, Eagle took off once more.
With an appropriately violent image, the Echo said: “Man left his second world in the same manner as he arrived – riding a column of flame.”
If you have any Moon memories of the landing 50 years ago – did you watch it on TV? – we’d love to hear from you. Either write to the above address or email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here