Investigator Geri Sullivan writes, just slightly in advance of her birthday:
Tomorrow, July 20, is Moon Day. Humankind first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969 and Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar lander and uttered the historic words “one small step…” on the Moon’s surface that very same night. But that’s not how it was scheduled to happen.
Those of us above a certain age who share a July 21st birthday remember that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were originally scheduled to first walk on the Moon’s surface on July 21st. Few other people remember that part of it at all.
Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, finished their landing tasks, and were so excited to be there, they asked NASA for permission to go out late on the night of the 20th. It was after midnight Greenwich time, so the BBC reports it as happening on the 21st. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The BBC now? hindsightedly reports it as having happened on the 20th, but click here to see NASA’s version of the timing.], But in America, the Moon Walk Anniversary is July 20th rather than the originally scheduled July 21st.
I was turning 15 at the time, and tremendously excited not just by the Lunar landing itself, but by the fact that the Moon Walk was going to happen on my birthday. Still, I forgave the astronauts pretty much immediately. If I’d been up there, I wouldn’t have wanted to wait in the lander for another 12 hours or so just to stay on schedule. I would have wanted to go out and look around, just like they did. All who were born on July 20th got a keen birthday surprise in the process. I’ll bet a bunch of them still remember it, too.
EDITOR’S FURTHER NOTE: Meanwhile, so to speak, CSIRO claims bragging rights of a related kind:
In July 1969, the Parkes Observatory claimed a place in history, when they received television transmissions of man’s first steps on the moon…. Australian audiences witnessed the moon walk, and Armstrong’s historic first step, some 6.3 seconds before the rest of the world.