Recollecting the Awe of Apollo 11

For most of us watching Neil Armstrong take those first steps on the moon, the awe of safely sending a man to the moon and back was mind boggling.  Those first steps were mostly seen by the public in grainy shades of grey on cathode ray tube televisions. It was unimaginable that men could be traveling through space to explore another frontier.  It was also unimaginable that the technology that brought the Saturn V to the moon would be adapted for consumer use in a short span of five decades.

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing on July 20, 2019 is a reminder that great moments in history are made up of a rich tapestry of people working together for a collective goal. For two decades, the Space Race dominated popular culture.  For the City of Huntsville, the event had a personal face of neighbors who worked at the George Marshall C Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal where the Saturn V rocket was designed and built.

For TVA, it was the responsibility of overcoming a failed lock on Wheeler Dam to build a one mile bypass for the 363 foot, 75 ton rocket’s delivery to Cape Canaveral in time for fall testing.  The original plan had been to ship the rocket on barge along the river systems on the 2200 mile journey, but with damage to the lock, an alternative plan was needed. With expediency, the TVA partnered with local agencies to design and build a road that had terminals to park transfer barges to load and reload the rocket. The urgency was to keep the space mission on schedule for testing and the ultimate launch date.    

While the Apollo mission was born out of the Space Race and Cold War, this author prefers to remember a moment when the whole world was collectively holding their breath in wonder and awe at this achievement of mankind.