The Waxahachie Daily Light from Waxahachie, Texas • Page 1

Micrcfila: Center. P. 0. Bex 75235 DAILY LIGHT WAXAHACHIE, TEXAS 75165 MONDAY, JULY 21, 1969 50c PER COPY NO. 8 Neil Armstrong, starts to put his left foot down from the ladder on the LEM as he became the first human to set foot on the moon here at Tranquillity Base.

Dark streak running horizontally across the picture was caused by an interruption of television ground data at the Goldstone tracking Station in California where the photographs of the television signal from the moon were taken. (ypi Telephoto) You Saw Footprints On Time SPACE CENTER, Houston (U sat there and watched man step into his own dream. The silent footfall on the airless moon that was the leap of ages. You sat and saw a corner-turning in the human saga. Man left his footprints on the sands of space, and a great portion of the world sat and watched with you as the television eye start'd at the audacity of the bootmarks of a civilian from Ohio and a colonel from New Jersey signing in on the register of the lunar soil.

After a million years of dreaming, guessing, wondering, wishing, questing in the mind for the impossible visit, feeling the urge of the unknown sky above, humankind had gained a toehold on the heavens. Those two made it seem too easy. Like Joe DiMaggio in centerfield. The mark of the pro. The first moon tourists were humble.

They realized, with a terrible start when the President called them, what was happening to them and to their fellow men. Armstrong, Aid in Blastoff For Home By EDWARD K. DELONG UPI Space Writer SPACE CENTER, Houston A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.

safely blasted off the moon's surface today to begin their voyage home from man's first conquest of an alien world. "Eagle is in safe orbit," Armstrong reported 17 minutes after their moonship stirred the lunar dust with its rocket engine and roared up from the Sea of Tranquillity. The two American astronauts spent 21 hours walking, exploring and collecting 80 pounds of priceless lunar rocks. "Beautiful. Aldrin said, as the spacecraft skimmed at more than 1,000 m.p.h.

over the craters and boulders around the flat landing field. Ahead they faced a perilous 3 rendezvous maneuver to rejoin Michael Collins in the Apollo 11 command ship 70 miles above the moon. Homeward Bound They plan to leave lunar orbit at 12:53 a.m. Tuesday, homeward bound. Behind they left the moon, the earth and history forever changed.

"Nineeight 7 654... proceed," camethecount. "Beautiful," said Aldrin. "Very smooth." One minute after the hazardous blast off, Houston control radioed the moon pilots "You're looking good." "Beautiful," Aldrin reported one minute, 40 seconds after the launch. Forty seconds later, heagain reported "Beautiful." The Eagle skimmed above a set of three crates nicknamed Cat's Paw, then passed over a large old crater named Sabine and a sharp new crater named Schmidt.

"Everything's looking good earth control reported three minutes after launch. The astronauts were traveling some 1,000 m.p.h. at the time. "We're going right down U.S. 1," reported Armstrong.

"You're going right down the track," ground control reported. "Everything look's great." Four minutes after launch, the ship was traveling at 1,640 miles per hour and was 36,000 feet above the moon. "Man that's impressive looking, isn't it," Aldrin said. At 1:54 p.m. EDT, Eagle's ascent engine roared to life and for the first time without benefit of thousands of ground technicians working a few miles away, men launched themselves toward an orbit.

At 2:02 p.m. came the word they had made it. One of the most cliff-hanging aspects of their mission was a success. "Very smooth," Aldrin reported. Then came a succession of "beautifuls" from the two pilots.

The astronauts cooly read off the velocity change they needed to achieve orbit. "Shutdown," Armstrong radioed, his ascent engine off. Apollo's Eagle was in an orbit ranging from about 11 to 52miles high. Russia's unmanned Luna 15, which had been mysteriously shadowing Apollo 11 in lunar orbit since Thursday, apparently landed on the moon two hours before Eagle took off. But it reportedly hit with such a speed as to preclude its speculated objective of scooping up some lunar dirt and racing the Americans back to earth with it.

Eagle Soars Collins in the Columbia command module was 30Dmiles away when Eagle soared into orbit. The lunar module immediately prepared for a complicated series of maneuvers to rendezvous and dock with his ship. "The whole world is proud of you," ground communicator Ron Evans told the Eagle's lunar pioneers. President Nixon, who talked to the astronauts on the moon Sunday night, said "Good news" when told of the successful launch and orbit. Both spacemen were taciturn and calm on the liftoff in comparison to the enthusiastic descriptions of the lunar See ARMSTRONG on Page 8.