In July 1969 I was 7. I pressed my nose up to our black and white Thorn TV to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon. After bouncing around in their bright white moon suits they retreated to the lunar lander, tidied things away, then slept. I remember thinking how odd it must have been to sleep so far away from home in that bleak place.
11 July 1969
12:54 a.m.– After checking with Mission Control to make sure all chores have been completed, experiments set up, and photographs taken, Aldrin starts back up the ladder to re-enter the LM.
1:09 a.m.– Armstrong joins Aldrin in the landing craft.
1:11 a.m.– The hatch is closed. The astronauts begin removing the portable life support systems on which they have depended for two hours and 47 minutes.
5 a.m.– Astronauts are told to go to sleep, after attending to final housekeeping details and answering a number of questions concerning the geology of the Moon.
https://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/apollo11_log/log.htm
On the 50th anniversary of that expedition I again thought about the astronauts sleeping on the moon. Here is my soundtrack to their uneasy slumber.
#arthur-russell, #bitchin-bajas, #brian-eno, #claps, #grouper, #james-yates, #johanna-billing, #low, #lust-for-youth, #malibu-wands, #mark-mcguire, #mark-peters, #midday-veil, #panabrite, #scntfc, #sumsun, #ulrich-schnauss, #white-fold, #wolfgang-riechmann
