Jul 16 1974
From The Space Library
16-24 July: U.S. Space Week marked the fifth anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. The 1969 launch of Apollo 11 was commemorated 16 July by ceremonies at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, Pad A. At 9:32 am EDT, the moment of launch, Apollo 11 Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E Aldrin, Jr., unveiled a plaque designating the site a National Historical Landmark. Dr. George M. Low, NASA Deputy Administrator, told the thousands of guests: "No matter our achievements, . . . we cannot relax our pursuit of knowledge, for we must face the coming crises of our time. Every effort must be made to see that the opportunity which our technology presents is not lost. We may be sure that the opportunity will not occur soon again, if ever. To fail now would mean a ravaged environment and depleted resources-a plunge into a new and terrible Dark Age from which there would be no return." Unless "we continuously restore the fund of basic knowledge, we shall ultimately exhaust it. . . .
"Some day we will establish scientific outposts on the Moon, and even tap its mineral resources. And in the not-too-distant future astronauts may tread the surface of Mars and the glaciers of the moons of Jupiter in search of extraterrestrial life. . . . The future began here at 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969. At that moment on July 16 in the year 2069, launch windows to Mars, Neptune, and Pluto will be open. Will we fly through those windows? I think we will."
In 19 July ceremonies at the San Clemente, Calif., Western White House, Armstrong presented President Nixon a plaque bearing the names of each astronaut who had represented "this country in a flight above the surface of the Earth." President Nixon told Armstrong the greatest contribution to the space program was not the exploration or technology but the "spirit you and your colleagues . . . have had the opportunity to demonstrate."
The Smithsonian Institution hosted 20 July activities marking the day of the landing. Speaking on the Mall in Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Under Secretary Robert A. Brooks said Apollo 11 had been a "dramatic demonstration . . . that progress in human affairs does not spring full blown from the efforts of one man or group of men. What we saw was the culmination of the efforts of hundreds of scientists and engineers from Leonardo da Vinci . . . to the Apollo 11 astronauts. Each built on what his predecessors had accomplished until the accumulation of knowledge made possible the kind of quantum leap forward represented by the Apollo Program."
Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, called the day of the landing "the day man ended an era of one-planet civilization and began a new age as traveler and colonizer of the universe." Despite difficulties, men would "make more of these steps into the vast but exciting reaches of the solar system."
A 21 July service at the Washington Cathedral in Washington, D.C., dedicated the Space Window donated by Dr. Thomas O. Paine, NASA Administrator at the time of the landing. The window, designed by Rodney Winfield, depicted whirling orange, red, and white stars and orbiting planets on a deep blue and green field. A thin white trajectory, representing a manned spacecraft, emphasized man's minuteness in God's universe. During the ceremony, Armstrong presented a 7.18-g, 3.6-billion-yr-old lunar rock, brought from the moon by Apollo 11, to the Cathedral. The rock would be inserted into a hydrogen-filled plexiglass container embedded as the centerpiece of the window. (PD, 22 July 74, 815; NASA Activities, 15 Aug 74, 5-14; transcript; program)
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