A framed print from the clubhouse:
A Small Step for Man, a Leap for Mankind.
The Miami Herald, Monday July 21, 1969
To Aldrin, it's 'Magnificent Desolation'
by the Herald Space Bureau
HOUSTON - "Magnificent desolation."
That was astronaut Buzz Aldrin's observation as he stepped on the moon's surface Sunday night to join Neil Armstrong in the historic climax to an epic journey from earth.
That was at 11:16 p.m. 20 minutes after Armstrong had placed his left foot on the dusty surface and said "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Thus America's moon-landing astronauts expressed themselves as they began their mission on the moon.
ARMSTRONG, after he had placed both feet solidly on the surface, had begun the pair's dialogue about their experiences.
"Looking up at the I.M., I'm standing directly in the shadow now, looking up at Buzz (Aldrin) in the windows. I can see everything quite clearly," Armstrong said.
ARMSTRONG MOVED slowly in the strange world of gravity only one-sixth as strong as the earth's, but he appeared to have no difficulty.
He said the moon surface appeared hard and very cohesive.
"It has a stark beauty all its own. It's much like the desert of the United States. It's different but it's very pretty out here," the astronaut said.
"Ready for me to come out?" Aldrin asked at 11:10 p.m.
"Stand by for just a second," Armstrong replied.
"OK, you saw what difficulties I was having," Armstrong said as he guided Aldrin out of the ship's hatcheway.
"Hey, Neil, didn't I say we would see some purple rocks?" Aldrin said a few minutes later.
"Find a purple rock?" Armstrong asked. "Yep," Aldrin replied.
PRESIDENT Nixon, following the flight on television like millions of others around the world, called the two astronauts after they planted the American flag.
"Because of what you have done the heavens have become part of man's world," Nixon said.
"Thank you, Mr. President."
this front page story reproduction ends here.
Landscape's Like Southwest U.S., Armstrong says
by Robert S. Boyde, Chief of our Washington Bureau
HOUSTON -- Man landed and walked on the moon Sunday.
The fragile spaceship Eagle deposited American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin in the barren southwest corner of the Sea of Tranquility at 4:18 p.m., and six and a half hours later, at 20 seconds past 10:56 p.m., Armstrong planted his left foot on the moon.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind ..." were his first words.
In his normally calm voice tremulous with excitement, the first man on the moon radioed a graphic account of history's greatest adventure back to earth while a TV camera beamed live pictures of the eerie lunar landscape to a spellbound audience of millions.
Twenty minutes later, Armstrong talked Aldrin down the ladder of the Eagle onto the firm, powdery soil of Tranquility Base.
Thus was completed an epic journey charted eight years ago but dreamed of since man first lifted his eyes towards the heavens.
For two hours, 10 minutes Sunday night, there WAS life on the moon. Two-legged creatures from the plant Earth talked, walked, ran and worked on the crust of an alien world. They returned to the lunar module at 1:09 a.m. today. At 1:53 p.m. today, the astronauts will fire the big ascent engine to send them off the moon's surface to rendezvous with the command module.
The descent stage of the lunar lander will serve as the launch platform during blastoff from the moon.
THE ROAD to Tranquility Base was a quarter million miles long, but the last 200 feet were the worst.
In a heart-clutching finale to an otherwise phenomenally smooth flight, Armstrong snatched control of the Eagle from a computer and flew it to a safe landing on a level, rock-strewan plain pocked with thousands of small craters.
If Armstrong hadn't taken the helm, the Eagle would have fallen into a crater the size of a football ....
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Note: This front-page edition ends here.
I'll howl at the moon tonight in their honour," offers Kia.
