A Ringside View of the Moon Shots, Part 2: JFK's Challenge Creates a Community

On February 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy receives a briefing on the operation of Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral following the Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) flight. This was President Kennedy's first visit to Cape Canaveral. MA-6 astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. (partially obscured) piloted the Mercury "Friendship 7" spacecraft on the United States' first human orbital flight. In the center (on Glenn's left) is Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., MA-6 flight director and Chief of Flight Operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). The MA-6 flight was on February 20, 1962. Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (right), pilot of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission, made the United States' first manned space flight on May 5, 1961. (NASA on the Commons Photo S74-33007)

By Steve Milner
Contributing Writer

President John F. Kennedy had issued his lunar challenge on May 25, 1961, only three weeks after our first astronaut, Alan Shepard, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard a Redstone rocket. His flight formally began our manned space flight program. I remember this major milestone well, having skipped a college class at Penn State to watch Shepard’s launch on my black-and-white television. Little did I know that three years later I’d be a rookie freelance member of the Cape Canaveral press corps, sending news stories from this famous dateline to several radio stations across the United States. And after a year-and-a-half as a freelancer, I became a full-time NASA public affairs contractor at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Kennedy, where I proudly worked during the next eight years, supporting the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab space missions.

On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy, speaks in front of an early design for the Apollo lunar module. The large windows were later replaced with smaller, down-facing windows. Seats also were removed resulting in a design in which the astronauts stand. NASA Administrator James Webb, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Dr. Robert Gilruth, director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) in Houston, and others look on. (White House photo by Cecil Stoughton)

After JFK’s unprecedented challenge, a government-industry team, working at NASA field centers, universities and industry throughout the nation, dedicated itself to making his challenge a reality. In some ways, this monumental undertaking on the home front reminded me of the vast scope and complexity of America’s efforts created to fight World War II. Some 400,000 persons worked in some aspect of the Apollo Program, which (in 1960s dollars) cost $24 billion. In recognizing the contributions of a cross-section of these specialists from around the country, NASA periodically honored some of them in a social setting in Cocoa Beach with astronauts who had flown in space, or would in the future. 

Hollywood celebrities frequently attended these special events, held for workers ranging from those who made spacesuits to others who played a role in other aspect of manned space flight preparations. These honorees also toured the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Kennedy, and had VIP seating to watch Apollo launches. I was pleased to have been selected by my company as its Apollo 14 honoree, in conjunction with NASA’s Manned Flight Awareness Program. My wife and I attended the Apollo 14 reception the night before that mission’s launch on January 31, 1971, where we met actors Jimmy Stewart and spoke with Hugh O’Brian, whom I had worked with closely during his youth foundation’s visits to the Cape. There were other notables at these events, too numerous to mention here.

On November 16, 1963, Dr. Wernher von Braun, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, explains the Saturn Launch System to President John F. Kennedy. NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans is to the left of von Braun. Kennedy would be assassinated on a visit to Dallas less than a week later. (NASA photo 64P-0145)

Unfortunately, JFK didn’t live to see Apollo 11, a challenging mission that began from a facility named for him: the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located adjacent to the Cape.

A few weeks prior to Shepard’s historic flight, the Soviet Union had successfully launched its first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, on an hour-and-a-half Earth orbital mission, greatly accelerating the space race between our two nations.

On November 20, 1969, Charles Conrad Jr., Apollo 12 Commander, examines the unmanned Surveyor III spacecraft during the second extravehicular activity (EVA-2). The Lunar Module (LM) "Intrepid" is in the right background. This picture was taken by astronaut Alan L. Bean, Lunar Module pilot. The "Intrepid" landed on the Moon's Ocean of Storms only 600 feet from Surveyor III. The television camera and several other components were taken from Surveyor III and brought back to earth for scientific analysis. Surveyor III soft-landed on the Moon on April 19, 1967. (NASA on the Commons Photo AS12-48-7136)

In selecting potential manned landing sites on the Moon, NASA referred to images and other data returned by impacting Ranger spacecraft, and Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor spacecraft. Seven Surveyor spacecraft soft landed on the lunar surface, including one that Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Alan Bean visited, located only about 600 feet from their landing site. They photographed Surveyor 3 and brought back some of its parts for examination on Earth. Today, their Apollo 12 command module is on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia.

On November 24, 1969, Astronaut Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot, is assisted with egressing the Apollo 12 Command Module by a U.S. Navy underwater demolition team swimmer during recovery operations in the Pacific Ocean. Already in the life raft are astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., commander; and Richard F. Gordon Jr., command module pilot. The three crewmen of the second lunar landing mission were picked up by recovery helicopter and flown to the prime recovery ship, USS Hornet (CVS 12). The Apollo 12 splashdown occurred at 2:58 p.m. (CST), Nov. 24, 1969, near American Samoa. While astronauts Conrad and Bean descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Intrepid" to explore the Ocean of Storms region of the moon, astronaut Gordon remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Yankee Clipper" in lunar orbit. (NASA Photo S69-22265 via NHHC Photo Curator/ Flickr)

NEW FRONTIER TOWN

Apollo 11 was the tip of the iceberg, because so many of America’s earlier space milestones were required to accomplish this and five subsequent manned lunar landing missions. The Apollo and earlier astronauts prepared for their flights in a community setting: Cocoa Beach and other areas located near KSC were the communities, and our space program was their principal “industry.” In some ways, Cocoa Beach in the early 1960s reminded me, as a new resident, of being a “frontier town,” where people from across the country hoped to start exciting new lives, within the backdrop of Florida’s relaxed lifestyle and our patriotic and demanding space program.

The Cocoa Beach Cape Colony Inn marquee was one of many that wished the Apollo 11 astronauts good luck on their lunar mission.  (Photo by Steve Milner)

Due to this influx, communities had to increase their services by building new schools, enlarging their law enforcement and fire departments and, possibly, cooperating regionally for the first time with other localities. Many new homes, apartments and various stores were built throughout Brevard County, where the spaceport is located. Our nation’s space program transformed a once-sleepy area into a world-famous news dateline—complete with the periodic influx of inquiring national and international media, and a continuous flow of tourists.

Interior view of Ramon's of Cocoa Beach. Color postcard, 9 x 14 cm. (State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory)

One would routinely see astronauts in local restaurants, relaxing after a tough day working in a spacecraft mission simulator or after picking up make-believe moon rocks and deploying experiments on a spaceport’s sandy field. I recall their favorite places in Cocoa Beach to unwind were–among other eateries and watering holes–Ramon’s restaurant, located atop a glass bank building, Bernard’s Surf gourmet restaurant, the oceanfront Holiday Inn lounge, and the Ramada Inn’s Wolfie’s restaurant next door; the latter being where I ate most dinners during my bachelor days. Overall, the area’s residents and aerospace workers respected the astronauts’ privacy in public places, but some tourists would approach them for autographs or conversations. In addition to those working at the Cape and KSC, there were military personnel attached to nearby Patrick Air Force Base, and the U.S. Navy’s early Polaris submarine facility at Port Canaveral that supported submerged missile test launches in the Atlantic Ocean.

On October 6, 1969, the Apollo 12 lunar Extravehicular Activity (EVA) crew members, Pete Conrad and Al Bean conduct a simulation of the lunar surface activity planned for their lunar landing mission at a training session held in the Flight Crew Training Building at the Kennedy Space Center. (NASA on the Commons Photo 69PC-0549)

The Apollo astronauts, as did Gemini and Apollo space pilots, trained in mission simulators in KSC and Houston, where they lived with their families. I always knew when mission astronauts arrived at Florida’s Patrick Air Force Base in their T-38 aircraft, because I would routinely be tasked to caption their arrival photos for news release. Unless it was a scheduled media availability, the Apollo 11 astronauts spent most of their time reviewing mission book work, and training in mission simulators. However, as their launch drew closer, they were less accessible to non-essential mission personnel. And those they interacted with as part of their “jobs,” became “primary contacts.” These included launch and support personnel, and their families, as well as the astronauts’ families. So, for example, if these key personnel or family members came in contact with someone with a cold, it had to be reported to a NASA epidemiologist for tracking practices.

Editor's Note: In addition to serving as public affairs officer for 17 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Milner was also a public affairs contractor with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral during the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.