American Experience

(cars rushing past)

MARK BLOOM

We had to be at the Cape real early. And got in the car, start heading out for the Cape. Huge crowds! The roads-- you couldn't get through. And I began to think, "I'm not even going to get there in time."

WALTER CRONKITE

The goal is the moon, perhaps man's oldest dream. If all goes well, some 112 hours and 50 minutes after liftoff, Neil Armstrong will step on the lunar surface. It shows what this, the richest nation in history, can do when it puts its mind to it.

JOHN LOGSDON

My very first launch was Apollo 11. (applause) I had a press pass, and so I was there and had access.

00 or 4

00 in the morning, stood by the operations building, and watched these three guys walk by me on the way to the moon. That's like seeing Columbus sail out of port.

FRANK MCGEE

We all realize that this is the beginning of the most audacious undertaking that man has ever attempted.

BLOOM

Historically, man going to the moon-- that was an amazing thing. The question was whether this would represent a cosmic quest that mankind is going to pursue as a destiny.

ARMSTRONG

That's one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind. (helicopter rotors droning) ("Wait" by M83 playing) (talking in background, applauding)

RALPH ABERNATHY

We may go on from this day to Mars and to Jupiter, and even to the heavens beyond, but as long as racism, poverty, hunger, and war prevail on the Earth, we as a civilized nation have failed. ("Wait" continues)

HEYWOOD BROUN

Some of us think that the tremendous interest in space travel is, in a sense, a search for another Eden-- that man has a kind of guilt about the world in which he lives and that he has despoiled the place where he is, and that perhaps he ought, now in his maturity, to set out to find another place, a place which man could go to, leaving behind the rusty cage in which his own mistakes have held him. ("Wait" continues)

JACK KING

Four minutes and counting, we are a go for Apollo 11. Firing command coming in now, we are on the automatic sequence.

THEO KAMECKE

I was standing near the giant windows in the launch control center right alongside Wernher von Braun and the other people who were responsible for it.

KING

Ten, nine, ignition sequence start, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. (engines roaring) Liftoff, we have a liftoff...

KAMECKE

I was thinking, "What a wonderful animal we are, "that we could dream up this "and get ourselves off this planet that we were born on and off to another world." No time

MISSION CONTROL (on radio)

Apollo 11, Houston, you're good at one minute. No time

POPPY NORTHCUTT

One of the joys about the space program-- everybody felt they had a piece of it, and they did.

MISSION CONTROL

Velocity 2,195 feet per second. No time No time We're through the region of maximum dynamic pressure now.

ERIC SEVAREID

This is just the beginning, perhaps, of a new stage in the evolution of the species-- something comparable to the crawling of the first amphibian creature out of the primeval swamp onto dry land. Oh Oh

DAVID BRINKLEY

The astronauts are talking to the ground and reporting on the facts and figures of the flight, and somebody here a minute ago was saying they are as matter-of-fact and unexcited and calm as if they were taxicab drivers reporting in and saying, "We're on Maple Street headed for downtown." (device beeping, "Wait" continues)

MISSION CONTROL

What's your staging status?

LAUNCH CONTROL

Houston, you are go for staging. (device beeps) ("Wait" continues) Oh

KING

The circumstances were such that we had the nation behind us, everybody was sitting on the edge of their seat, and the awe of the first time we did it-- something you never forget. ("Wait" continues)

MISSION CONTROL

Standing by for the outboard engine... ("Wait" ends)