Highlight of the week was the Reunion commemorative lunch on Sunday. This was organized by a group of the people who tracked the Apollo missions from the 3 tracking stations near Canberra. The organizer was John Saxon, the guy that Mum is with in the photo. He was the Operations Supervisor actually at the controls of Honeysuckle Creek during the landing. At exactly 50 years after the landing, a copy of the original video was projected on several large screens. I think the name badges we had are the best I have ever seen and mine is safely tucked away in my "special things" box. Mum's father had a crucial role in getting the data from Apollo 11 to the world. He was the PMG supervisor in charge of keeping the communication lines between the
tracking stations and the Australian overseas networks operating during
the mission. Mum remembers that he was extremely busy and a bit stressed that day. Naturally, we collected a lot of souvenirs during the week. The Oldies like the shot glasses from the lunch and "christened" them with Benedictine as soon as they got home. I got a small bear sized Newton's cradle and still haven't managed to get all of the balls moving at once. Dad explained the physics to me, but I just have fun with it. The thing I am really waiting to get started on is the model kit of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. I aim to have Columbia in orbit and Eagle on the Moon's surface, it should look great.
Labels: Canberra, space
# posted by Bart Bear @ 4:43 pm
