The picture behind the story (2) - Man on the moon
April 6, 2026 - Astronaut Jeremy Hansen takes a photo from Orion.
It was July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 became the fifth manned space mission to land on the moon for the first time. The three astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin took off on their mission in a Saturn V rocket on July 16. While Collins waited in the spacecraft, Armstrong and Aldrin touched down on Earth's satellite in the lunar module "Eagle". At exactly 02:56.20, Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon - shortly before Aldrin - and radioed back to Earth:
"That's one small step for a man, but one giant leap for mankind!
22 hours later, the two successfully returned to the command ship and the capsule safely splashed down in the Pacific on July 24.
Around 600 million people around the world watched the live TV broadcast at the time. I still remember well that we had the first color TV - the "Körting" brand - in our village of 3,000 people at the time. More sandstorm than moon could be seen, and often only the then familiar test image. Nevertheless, practically the whole village took turns making a pilgrimage to our parlor to hopefully get a few colorful impressions of the moon. Bruno Stanek was the moon specialist at the time and provided commentary by day and night.
Now, on the night of Tuesday, April 7, 2026, the "Artemis ll" has once again quietly and silently orbited the moon after a fabulous 57 years. At 00:43 Swiss time, the probe disappeared behind the moon for 40 minutes at a distance of 406,780 kilometers (breaking the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 with 400,171 km), without any radio contact with Earth.
Countless digital images of the far side of the moon were taken and have already appeared on the Internet. In 1969, "Buzz" took the legendary analog pictures with a Hasselblad 6x6 specially built for the moon in a quality that is still unbelievable today. No wonder there were many conspiracy theories surrounding the moon landing at the time. The landings from 1969 to 1972 never took place and are said to have been staged at night in the Arizona desert and in Hollywood studios.
When I was lucky enough to meet "Buzz" (96) in person at the 2012 American GP in Austin (he was even introduced to me by Jackie Stewart), I couldn't help but wonder about the whole truth. Jackie laughed out loud and Aldrin said that I was certainly not the only one, but he could assure me that only he of the three of us had had the moon under his feet... ok, he's a bit ahead of me there, because I had already had the Arizona desert under the soles of my shoes during the Grand Prix in Phoenix from 1989 to 1991.
In my two books " Inside Formula 1 " and "Inside Formula 1 Lap 2 " you can read countless of these stories and see their pictures. A few of them, whose stories didn't make it into the books, will now find a place here in future.
