One Small Step

My mother often told the story that the first word my oldest brother ever spoke was not 'mama' or even 'daddy,' it was 'Moon.' She was walking him in the baby carriage and the full moon was shining bright as mom pointed to it and said, "Moon" and Frank repeated her, "moon." Little did we know that a quarter of a century later, Frank, would be an integral part of the team that put a man on the moon.

The Eagle landed on the moon at 4:18 pm EST on July 20, 1969. It would be the first lunar landing for a man and his safe return to the earth. My brother, Frank, was a integral part of the Operations Control at the Goddard Space Flight Center who worked on that Apollo II mission.

Frank received a special commemorative packet that included his Operations badge, a brochure titled, "One Small Step" and medallion made of the metal from the spacecrafts that took Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the moon and back on the historic Apollo II Mission.

The brochure reads, "Metal comprising actual working components of the spacecraft Eagle, which landed on the lunar surface and the spacecraft Columbia, which orbited the moon was used in processing this medallion."

If you would like to watch the actual NASA footage of Neil Armstrong as he descends to the surface of the moon and hear his historic speech, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind…" Click here.

My brother, Frank, was in the right place at the right time. He had excelled in German classes and could speak it fluently. My dad was already working at the Goddard Space Flight Center when the Operations Manager told dad that they needed someone who could speak with the German scientists. My father joked that his "kid" could speak fluent German and also was very good with computers.

Frank was hired within days and within a few short years, the race to the moon was on and he was a part of the team that would work on Apollo II. The certificate reads,

"For the first time, man has reached beyond his planet.

For the rest of time, we will think of ourselves as men from the planet Earth."

Sources:

Family History

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.step.html