A picture in time: Australia’s part in the moon landing.

Extract from The Guardian 

A picture in timeSpace

Prime minister John Gorton at Honeysuckle Creek tracking station near Canberra, one of three Nasa tracking stations in Australia, during the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.

The radio telescope at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra transmitted the first images of Neil Armstrong on the moon

Thu 21 Jul 2022 15.54 AEST

When the lunar module of Apollo 11 landed on the moon and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on to its surface for the first time, millions of people around the world watched the images live on television.

Nasa had five tracking stations around the world to record that moment and monitor the mission. The main station was at Goldstone in California, and Spain had one near Madrid. Australia had three: radio telescopes at Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes, and a deep space tracking station at Tidbinbilla.

The moon walk was originally planned to take place with the Parkes dish downloading the images and Tidbinbilla acting as a backup. Two days before the launch, there was a fire at Tidbinbilla – so Honeysuckle Creek became the backup.

When the astronauts landed, they decided they would rather moon walk than take their planned sleep break, which was going to be five hours before the moon would rise enough that Australia could transmit the TV images.

But it took so long for the astronauts to suit up and prepare to exit the module, the moon walk moved into the Australian timeframe.

When the moon walk started, Goldstone still had a moon view to receive and transmit the images. The Goldstone technician forgot to flip the switch to turn the vision around, which was arriving upside down, but the Australian techs didn’t.

Honeysuckle Creek’s radio telescope dish was a smaller 26-metre (85-foot) diameter, which meant it could angle lower than the 61-metre (200-foot) Parkes dish and see the moon first.

Grainy footage of the first steps down the ladder and famous words from Neil Armstrong – “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” – were transmitted from the dish in the hills near Canberra.

After eight minutes, the moon had risen enough that the bigger Parkes dish could come online and transmit better quality pictures to the world.

During preparation for the walk, then prime minister John Gorton was taken on a 30-minute tour by the Honeysuckle Creek station director Tom Reid. A relaxed PM smoked as he watched the busy technicians working at the huge walls of computer consoles.

In a prepared statement after the tour, Gorton told the ABC that Australia was proud to be taking part in this adventure through its tracking stations. He said the astronauts had dared dangerously and successfully, carrying out man’s urge to always go a little further to explore the previously unknown.