St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 1

On Today's Editorial Page Looking At Mass Transit: Editorial Illinois Court In Trouble: Editorial r-iNAL VOL. 91 NO. 193 1869, St. tools Fost-Dlspstck MONDAY, JULY 21, 1969 52 PAGES 1 A- Home DellTOiT i Flic J.U' (2.60 Mont Wf ST. Lu POST-0 SPATC ijunar Ex ted lor at ion Is Comple World Sees ww1 "im- Engine Fires Flawlessly By JEROME P.

CURRY A Staff Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch HOUSTON, July 21 The lunar landing ship Eagle, with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr. aboard, began its return to earth at 12:54 p.m. (St. Louis time) today in a flawless lift-off from the moon.

Flying the ship, Aldrin told the men monitoring the flight at Houston: "Beautiful. Twenty-six, thirty feet-per-second up. Very smooth very smooth ride" At 12:57 the craft was at 32,000 feet and at 1:01 it had achieved orbit of the moon, an orbit ideal for link-up with Columbia, the command ship. The docking of the two ships was set for 4:32 p.m.. Linked, they are scheduled to break out of the moon orbit at 11:57 p.m.

for the return to earth. Flying the ship up from the moon, Aldrin said at one point; "We've a little bit of slow wallowing here." Later, after the engine had burned 7 minutes and 17 seconds, Aldrin called "Shutdown," as the engine stopped. Historic Steps By a Staff Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch HOUSTON, July' 21 Men walked on the moon last night and claimed it for all mankind. 'Two American astronauts Apollo 11 commander Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E.

(Buzz) Aldrin pilot of the moonship Eagle walked, skipped, hopped and worked among the shining rocks and on the gray, powdery lunar sand of the Sea of Tranquility. Michael Collins, pilot of the Apollo command ship Columbia, cruised around the moon in a 60-mile-high orbit like a taxicab driver, waiting to take the first moon expeditionary force home. a 38-year-old civilian who commanded the" McDonnell Douglas Gemini 8 spacecraft when it made history's first space docking in 1966, opened the Eagle's hatch at 9:39 p.m. (St. Louis time).

The hatch of the module could be heard grating more than 200,000 miles away at Apollo control in the Manned Spacecraft Center near Houston, when Armstrong opened it. Aldrin instructed him how to Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong taking the first step of man onto the moon. 2, Xr; i 1 i move in the bulky moonsuit, which weights 183 pounds on earth but only 30.5 pounds on the moon. "OK Houston, I'm on the porch," said Armstrong as he moved onto the area of the descent stage of the Eagle just before preparing to go down the ladder.

Then Apollo control told Aldrin to begin photographing the descent. The historic television picture came back, to earth precise and clear. The picture was upside down for a moment, but then was corrected. One leg of the Eagle was visible in the picture. Armstrong was moving carefully down the ladder in the spacesuit designed to keep him alive in the hostile environment of the barren moon.

At the foot of the ladder he stepped onto one of the lunar module's four foot pads. The pads had sunk on landing only about two inches into the sand of the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. "It's almost like a powder," said Armstrong. He moved one arm slightly and turned. "Now and then, it's (the lunar sand) very fine," he continued.

"I'm going to step off the LM now." He stepped off the metal TURN TO PAGE 15. COLUMN 3 5-Day Forecast: Below Normal Extended forecast for St. Louis and vicinity: For the five-day period tomorrow through Saturday, temperatures will average 2 to 5 degrees below seasonal normals with only minor day-today changes. Normal highs are in the upper 80s; normal lows in the upper 60s. A period of showers or thundershowers is likely toward the middle of the week.

Armstrong (right) and Edwin E. Aldrin reading the plaque on a leg of the lunar landing module. "Great," Mission Control re- plied. Control technicians reported that Eagle was in a near-perfect orbit ranging from about 11 to 54 miles high. Eagle had to catch Columbia, piloted by astronaut Michael Collins in lunar orbit, in a 3-hour chase.

The flight marked the first time anything had rocketed off the moon and it ended man's first exploration of another celestrial body. 21 Hours On Moon Armstrong and Aldrin had camped at the moon base named Tranquility for 21 hours' and 36 minutes. They took off from the moon 69 seconds after Collins in Columbia flashed over the moon landing site. By the time they reached orbit Columbia was 300 miles ahead and the chase was on. The top half of Eagle was the ascent ship; the descent part of the ship with its landing legs was left behind.

If all goes according to schedule in the journey to earth, the astronauts will splash down at 11:51 a.m. Thursday in the Pacific Ocean. As Eagle lifted fro the moon, Christopher G. Kraft, director TURN TO PAGE 15, COLUMN 7 Additional Articles Additional articles and pictures on the Apollo moon landing in this edition of the Post-Dispatch include: Foreign reaction 2A Feature on moon walk 2A Family stories 3A Page of pictures 6A Moon experiments 7A Story behind JFK decision to reach moon 7A American reaction 12A Wernher von Braun writes 12A Transcripts of astronauts' conversations 13A Nixon's phone call 17A i City BackTo Earth By SALLY BIXBY DEFTY Of the Post-Dispatch Staff St. Louisans came back down to earth this morning.

of those who returned to work had a better night's sleep than they had expected, the moon walk having ended at 12:07 this morning instead of hours later as had been originally scheduled. "A sampling of large employ-' ers here Monsanto Famous-Barr Co. and the Chevrolet Division of General Motors Corp. snowed no rise in absenteeism that could be attributed to the long vigil. But many complained of eye strain resulting from more than 12 hours of continuous television watching and some felt emotionally drained after the historic event.

Housewives also had to return to business as usual, after a day qftyesterday. "I didn't feed my family one decent meal, I was So busy watching," Mrs. L. B. Deacon, a Clayton mother, said.

"Just told them to see what they could find in the icebox. No washing, no ironing, nothing." Mrs. Sue Buren, a Hillsboro secretary, returned to work today still exhilarated over man's first step on the moon. "I thought it was just fantastic. The movements of the men made it seem unbelievable.

They just kind of floated from step to step, like ghosts." Donald Meyer of the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center retired shortly after the astronauts were back inside the LEM because he had lots of work to do today planning for a 1971 orbit around Mars. "I was amazed at the smooth- TURN TO PAGE 15, COLUMN 1 Partly Cloudy Official forecast for St. Louis and vicinity: Partly cloudy but pleasant tonight with a chance of thunderstorms; low tonight In the 70s; Partly cloudy and warm tomorrow with the continued oossibility of thunder- storms; to- RED.WHITE AMD BLUE "MOONDAY morrow's high 85 to 90. Temperatures I rr' HT Ii mil im ii TTiHir am fi 't i Trr'! rlr Luna Fall To Moon From Post-Dispatch Wire Service JODRELL BANK, England. July 21 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 observatory, said Luna 15 was traveling about 300 miles an hour when it hit the moon on the Sea of Crisis, about 500 miles from the Sea of Tranquility where the two American Apollo astronauts walked on the moon yesterday. If Luna 15 hit the surface at that speed, Lovell said, "nothing is likely to survive such a landing. But this does not moan a complete crash landing." However, it was believed that it would end any possibility that Luna 15 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. A spokesman said Jodrell Bank's tracking antenna detected signal changes and then an abrupt cessation of transmissions that indicated Luna 15 had dropped out of orbit onto the lunar surface.

Lovell said the Soviet probe's retrorockets that could slow it for a descent to the moon were fired at 10:46.50 a.m. (St. Louis time). He said the signals stopped at 10:50.40 a.m. Earlier, Jodrell Bank said Luna 15 changed its course significantly and appeared to be approaching the moon's surface.

This followed a change in orbit yesterday which Tass news agency said took Luna 15 as close as 9.9 miles from the moon and over the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed. Luna 15 was launched July 13 and swung into moon orbit last Thursday. Moscow has not disclosed Luna's mission. In the closing Moscow television newscast last night, Luna's change in orbit eight hours earlier took precexl-ence over a brief report on the Apollo landing. Luna 15 was launched from Baikonur space station in the Soviet Republic of Kazkhstan as were others in the Luna series, which began 10 years ago when the Russians sent a rocket to the moon.

News Index Page Editorials 2B Everyday Magazine 1-8D Financial 16A Obituaries 9B Sports 4-8B Want Ads 9-20B Aldrin (right) saluting. The American flag Is between him and Armstrong. (Associated Press Wirephotos) I i I pi 1 a.m. 74 2 a.m. 73 3 a.m.

73 4 a.m. 74 5 a.m. 74 6 a.m. 74 7 a.m. 74 8 a.m.

74 9 a.m. 74 10 a.m. 78 11 a.m. 80 12 noon 82 1 p.m. 84 2 p.m.

4 3 p.m. 85 POST-DISPATCH ro u. fat cry. Other Weather Information on Fare 2 A Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr.

Lunar lander pilot Michael Collins Alone in the command ship Neil A. Armstrong First man to step on the moon 4 4.