Apollo 11 moon landing had 400,000 working behind scenes
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It took 400,000 people to put Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon a half-century ago.
That massive workforce stretched across the U.S. and included engineers, scientists, mechanics, technicians, pilots, divers, seamstresses, secretaries and more who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to achieve those first lunar footsteps.
Some of them will take part in festivities this week to mark the 50th anniversary .
• JoAnn Morgan:
July 16, 1969 was her prime-time debut as the first female launch controller. It wasn’t easy getting there.
Morgan, 78, who began working for NASA in 1958 while in college, typically got the overnight shift before launches. She’d be replaced by a male colleague a few hours before showtime.
“The rub came on being there at liftoff,” she recalled.
And there was the taunting. She got obscene phone calls at her desk at Kennedy Space Center and lewd remarks in the elevator.
As Apollo 11 loomed, Morgan’s boss went to the top to get her on liftoff duty. By then, the harassment had pretty much stopped.
While NASA’s countdown clocks ticked toward a 9:32 a.m. launch, Morgan monitored ground instrumentation, everything from fire and lightning detectors to guidance computer data.
Morgan went on to become Kennedy’s first female senior executive. Retired since 2003, she splits her time between Florida and Montana, and encourages young women to study engineering.
• Tedd Olkowski: He was on emergency standby for the launch countdown of Apollo 11.
His job was to help astronaut Michael Collins — should the unlikely need arise before liftoff — escape from the Saturn V rocket, descend 32 stories in a high-speed elevator and then slide down a 200-foot...