The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 1

ti) UJ K) l- Fair lair tonight; los iwd 60s Tuevlay partly cloudy and lit lie armer with chance of showers; highi 14 to I Mure weather data Page B4 I Final Edition 10c 124th Year. Day. Bloomington-Normal, Monday, July 21, 1969. 24 Pages. 2 Sections.

Beautiful' Blastoff Starts Moon Men Homeward 11 hours 36 minutes, raising the banner of their nation above it and fulfilling a dream of the ages. Seven minutes 18 seconds after the liftoff. Eagle's cabin section settled into a low lunar orbit The bottom half of tlie vehicle, with the landing legs, served as a launching pad and was left on the moon perfect orbit ranging from about II to 54 miles high. They had to catch Collins in a 3'j-huur chase to get back to earth. Their lunar vehicle was not built to lake them home.

Collins was spring-loaded to speed to the rescue if something should go wTong with the lunar taxi called Eagle. "Roger, understand we're No. I on the runway," Aldrin said minutes before the blastoff. A fiery burst from a small engine propelled Armstrong and AlJnn off the moon at 12:54 m. COT.

ending man's first exploration of another celestial body. TUy had camped at tin base named Tranquillity for 21 SPACE CENTER. H.mston (AP) Two Americans blasted off from the nvmn today, reaching the relative safety of lunar orbit and leaving their footprints in the lunar dust and in the history of man. It was the first time anything had ever rocketed away from the moon. Neil A.

Armstrong and Edwin A. Aldrin Jr. immediately began pursuing the command ship, orbiting 69 miles above the surface with astronaut Michael Collins at the controls. "Beautiful. Very smooth," Aldrin commented as Eagle took off from the moon.

"A very quiet ride. There's that one crater down there. "We've a little bit of slow wallowing here," he said later. "Shutdown," he called out as the engine stopped. "Great," Mission Control said and reported Eagle in a near- Jodrt'll Dank Report Luna Plunges to Moon landing.

However, it was believed it would end any possibility that Luna I could scoop up some moon dirt and race the American astronauts back to earth. There had been official and unofficial speculation in Moscow that this was the purpose of the probe. JODRELL BANK, England ITI (-England's Jodrell Bank tracking station said Russia's unmanned Luna 15 space vehicle apparently plunged to the surface of the moon today at such high speed it could have been severely damaged. Sir Bernard Lovell, chief of the tracking facility, said Luna 15 was traveling around 300 miles per hour when it hit the moon on the Sea of Crisis, about 500 miles from the Sea of Tranquillity where the two American Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the moon Sunday. If Luna 15 hit the surface at that speed, Lovell said, "nothing is likely to survive such a 'I only go in an eighth of an inch, but I can too my foot prints." Neil Armstrong The command ship, Columbia, and Eagle, had worked in close radio harmony as the critical firing neared.

Precisely 69 seconds after Collins flashed over the landing site, Armstrong and Aldrin took off. By the time they reached orbit. Columbia was 300 miles ahead and the chase was on. Armstrong and Aldrin were to execute several intricate maneuvers, triggered by engine firings, to close the gap and catch its fleeting target. After a rest period, the astronauts plan to light up the big command ship engine at 11:57 tonight to start the quarter-miilion-mile journey back to earth.

Splashdown is scheduled at 11:51 a.m. Thursday in the Pacific. Through the magic of television, an estimated 500 million people around the world had a ringside seat to man's greatest adventure. It was unforgettable. As Armstrong planted his size 9' left boot on the powdery surface at 9:56 p.m.

Sunday, he World reaction to America's lunar triumph is reported on Pago B-l. The second port of the series 'Beyond the Moon' appears on Page B4. spoke words that will be remembered for all time: "That's one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind." The camera trained on Aldrin as he stepped on the far shore 20 minutes later and exclaimed: "Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation." There were other memorable utterances during the day of Tomorrow's Timetable SPACE CENTER. Houston fL'PIi Timetable of main events coming up in the flight of Apollo 11. all times CDT and subject to change: Tonight: 4:11 p.m.

LM and CM rendezvous and dock. 8:21 p.m. LM is jettisoned and abandoned. Tuesday: 11:53 a.m. Command module fires its main engine to break out of moon gravity and start trip homeward.

1:32 a.m. 10-hour rest period for astronauts. iff: fa: ii W. i t. Midcourse cor-Television from 2:53 p.m.

rection. 7:00 p.m. space. 'The Eagle Has Landed' SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) "Tranquillity Bat here. The Eagle has landed." Those were the first words from th lunar surface, from command pilot Neil Armstrong after the touchdown on the moon.

Several hours later Armstrong became the first man to step onto the surface of the moon. He said of the achievement: "That's ont small step for man, no giant leap for mankind." His words will be recorded in history books beside other famous first words: Charles Lindbergh, on arriving in Paris May 21. 1927, after the first solo flight across the Atlantic: "I'm Charles Lindbergh." Sir Henry Morton Stanley, on meeting Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, central Africa. Nov.

10, 1871: "Doctor Livingston I presume?" Gen. Douglas MacArthur, arriving in Aus tralia March 24, 1942, from Corregidor and the Philippines: "I shall return." Samuel F.B. Morse, in transmitting the first long distance message over the first telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, May 23, 1844: "What hath God wrought." Adm. Richard E. Byrd, as navigator with Floyd Bennett in first airplane flight over North Pole, May 9, 1926: "The dream of a lifetime has et last been realized." Byrd, returning from first flight over South Pole Nov.

20, 1929, in his journal: "Well, it's done. We have seen the Pole and the American flag has been advanced to the South Pole." Alexander Graham Bell, on March 10, 1876, in the first intelligible words transmitted by telephone, to his assistant: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." high adventure. They planted an American flag and saluted It, but made it plain they came to the moon as ambassadors for all mankind. They unveiled a stainless steel plaque bearing these words: "Here men from planet earth first set foot upon the moon, July, 1969.

A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." They left on the moon a disc on which messages from the leaders of 76 nations had been recorded. They will return to earth with them the flags of 136 nations, including Russia. And they left behind mementos for three Americans and two Russians who died for the cause of space exploration. The theme was carried through when President Nixon placed an extraordinary radio call to Armstrong and Aldrin as they strolled the surface.

TV Times NEW YORK (AP) -Scheduled Apollo coverage on the three major television networks (all times CDT): Today: CBS and NBC, conclusion of 31 hours of continuous coverage through p.m.; ABC, conclusion of 30 hours continuous coverage through p.m., special. Tuesday: ABC, 1:021:17 p.m., live pictures from capsule; 9:51 p.m., progress report; CBS, p.m. live transmission, progress reports through day; NBC, 11:50 p.m.-12:15 a.m., rocket firing for return to earth. Watch That Bottom Step Apollo 1 1 commander Neil Armstrong. A television camera and thousands of miles of space are responsible for distortion in reproduction.

(UPI Telephoto) Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, lunar module pilot, becomes the second man to set foot on the moon as he gingerly feels his way off the last rung of the LM's ladder and joins lowly, At (hp i soundless, airless, mostly colorless moon. Over the curving horizon, only one and a half miles away on a planet smaller than earth, there was the blackness of space and infinity. The foreground was starkly lighted by the sun and the men and their vehicle cast long shadows. It was dawn on the moon and a dawn in the history of man. Words For All Neil Alden Armstrong, formerly of 601 West Benton Wapakoneta, a town in Ohio, a state in the United States, a country on the planet earth, extended his left foot onto the moon.

"That's one small step for tun the two planets to an accuracy of six inches. And they planted the flag of their country on the still face of the moon. Finally, Aldrin to Earth: "Anything for us before I head up?" Earth: "Negative. Head on up the ladder, Buzz." Buzz was first up. Armstrong stayed a few minutes longer, carefully guiding the hoisting of the rock boxes like the last pirate off an island with a load of gold.

Then Armstrong climbed up, the captain being the last to return from alien land. And now the moon was motionless again. All that remained was the landing craft, looking like a surrealistic crab, and the scientific instruments, and the American flag frozen in arrested motion, and in tlie stillness the mystery of the moon began to end for scientists and the mystique of the moon gan to end for poets and lovers. only about an inch." And for the doctors: "There seems to be no difficulty in moving around." And for the geologists and the biologists and the others seeking the age of the solar system and the secret of life he immediately began collecting "contingency" samples of rock. "Contingency" in case he had to leave in a hurry.

And Buzz Aldrin came down, the second man on the surface of the moon. And together they walked and ran like kids at recess and then like men with the responsibility of the ages they went to work. Perform Tasks They gathered rocks, they set up a foil panel to measure the solar wind, they installed a seismometer to probe the interior of the moon, they set up a small mirror to reflect laser beams from earth, to measure the quarter million miles between man one giant leap for man-" he said. The first words By Saul Pett SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) They took their first steps onto the moon cautiously, like prudent boys testing the first ice of winter on a country pond. When first they walked, they walked carefully and slowly, leaning forward, plodding heavily like tired old cops on a beat In Staten Island.

As they acquired confidence, they walked faster, now with a slow bounce in the one-sixth gravity of the moon. And then they ran and their stride was longer than on earth and their shoes seemed suspended off the strange lunar surface, with something of the floating quality of figures on slow motion film. When they were still, they seemed very slill, as if frozen, and they leaned forward like puppets to be at a lunar form of attention when the president spoke to them from earth. "Bright and Beautiful" All the while, the earth was "bright and beautiful" above them. In this first incredible day of an incredible new era one needs to repeat that: the earth was above them.

In the distance, the lunar surface looked pocked and leathery like the back of a (lend alligator. Closer up, it looked like rubble, like earth levelled roughly after disaster, dead. They looked ghostlike on the kind were fine. History would be con tent. Now for the scientists: "The surface is fine and powdery.

It adheres like charcoal to the soles of my shoes. You go down Proud Nixon Shares Jubilation Scientific Chores Performed "For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all of the people on this earth are truly one." Nixon said during his brief message congratulating lh" niiiiUls jubilation with them. "This certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the While House," Nixon told astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr WASHINGTON (AP) After a super long distance call to tell America's men on the moon "how proud wc all are," President Nixon phoned Mamie Eisenhower and former President Lyndon B. Johnson to share his landing module.

The equipment was picked up and relumed to spacecraft at the end of the pair's exciting stay on moonscape. (UPI Telephoto) Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, left, deploys a solor wind experiment on lunar surface during walk on moon. Astronaut Neil Armstrong walks toward him and lunar.