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Apollo 11 seen by the press
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The MoonHere five articles published in the French-speaking daily press at the time of the mission Apollo 11.

La dernière heure, July 17, 1969, edition of the morning, first page.
Not for nothing

Torn off Earth by the enormous push of a rocket and projected in space at a supersonic speed, men go, in four days, to walk on the Moon.
At present that it started, it is still quite difficult for us to carry out all the range of this odyssey, most fantastic of the history of nhumanity.
In the absence of an awakening which will come only gradually as are held the outstanding phases of the mission Apollo 11, which we feel in fact first impressions can be summarized in these words : exaltation, anxiety and perplexity.

Exaltation initially, in front of this extraordinary success of the social science, in front of this fiction which becomes suddenly reality, in front of this first impression of a great adventure, in front of this first step in the infinite one which involves humanity towards a cosmic destiny to which it seems well that it cannot escape. All things considered, a beginning of vertiginous intoxication in this escape ahead where the Man perhaps seeks himself by seeking other manifestations of the life. Because, it is felt well that this voyage on the Moon and those which will follow it, worms of other planets, constitute for the Man an attempt to give to the universe a significance which satisfies it finally, while at the same time the clean mystery of its existence continues to torment it. Impotent to decipher the veil of it, in the small world where it saw, it hopes to arrive there while being useful of the solar system as of a springboard to cross the light-years which will lead it at the end of its anguish.

Anxiety then, because nobody can forget that three human lives are risky in this adventure. And, already, in front of our small screen, at the beginning of the rocket Saturn V, we felt this pinching with the heart, this small knot in the throat, who were only the prefiguration of the other moments of intense emotion that we will live with the wire of the hours and the days, with, always, this obsessing question : « will they return ? ».

Perplexity, finally, in front of the interest which a forwarding the Ground-Moon can present well. There is not a doubt that many are those which wonder whether it were quite necessary to spend of the fabulous sums to bring back samples of lunar ground, whereas more urgent problems and well « ground-with-ground », such as the hunger in the world, the cure of cancer and the cardiovascular accidents, would deserve to hold all the attention of the men of science and all the financial efforts of the great powers.
Of course, this question arises ; and it should well be recognized that the billion dollar spent by the United States can appear exorbitant. But, is this really so useless ? We don't think it. In addition to these famous « scientific repercussions » of the voyage which one affirms us that they will be important for the progress of our sciences and our technology, it is indubitable that, from a more practical and immediate point of view, astronautics, as a whole, gave a so strong impulse to electronics, that, already, the « economic repercussions » are perceptible.
Consequently, we haven't been able to say that, for twelve years, in Cape Kennedy, one « wasted » of the money for nothing, in the conduits of the space rockets.

Only one regret however : it is that the fantastic voyage of today is not the work of very whole humanity and that it was not possible that with the favour of a competition between two powers : the United States and Soviet Union.
We won't be able, indeed, to benefit all awaited from space exploration that thanks to an international co-operation.

Same newspaper, page 3
Short space

One estimates at 528 million the number of televiewers who looked at, in the whole world, the retransmission of the launching of Apollo 11. A person on four attends the one of the phases of the lunar flight by the channel of television, estimates one. The american company « A.B.C. » covered for the whole world the retransmission. The program which lasted one hour, was sent to 33 countries of the Western world and many communist countries.

Le Figaro, July 21, 1969, edition of 5 hours, first page
NIXON : « Last the 22 seconds, longest which I lived... »

It is on a small portable receiver of television, locked up only in its study of the administrative building (Executive Building), contiguous to the White House, that president Nixon followed, Sunday afternoon, the final phase of the lunar landing of the Eagle.
Immediately after the official confirmation of the operation's success, the State's Head put himself in communication by telephone with the director of NASA, Mr Thomas Paine, and charged with transmitting its congratulations to the Moon's winnersn. Besides he hoped to renew them later personally a few hours, when he would be put directly in contact with Armstrong and Aldrin, little after the historical minute of the first human step on the Moon « We live one of the greatest moments of our time », said the president to Mr Paine... « I am proud among all those which took part so that they [(astronauts)] have just made... The twenty-two last seconds before the lunar landing were longest that I ever lived. They appeared me to last good half an hour... »
Mr. Nixon then telephoned to his State's Secretary, Mr William Rogers, and said to him : «the success of this mission will produce immediate favorable reactions in the whole world and, I am certain, will contribute to the bringing together between all the people of our planet ».
Then the president went in the oval office of the White House to wait, in front of the cameras of television, the moment of his conversation on line with Armstrong and Aldrin, this minute which will make it pass in the history like the first Land one to have telephoned... in a «Lunaute ».

Same newspaper, page 5
It could be only Monday...

The Moon, whose regular revolutions had made it possible to the former astrologers to fix the first calendar, could be conquered only one Monday, the day which is devoted to him in all the Western languages.
Monday is indeed the day of the Moon, « Lunae Dies » of the Romans, which also gave lunei and lunedi. In the same way, the name of the Germanic goddess of the Moon gave English monday and German montag. The inventors of the first weekly calendar nowadays gave to each one a name honouring their principal gods. At the head the Sun came, then the Moon.

Le Monde, July 22, 1969, first page
Day of the species

With due respect in Miguel Angel Asturias, the exploit of Apollo 11 seems me to eclipse that of Christophe Colomb, precisely because the discovery of America was the work of a will, of an individual faith, carried out in the medium of uncertainties and dangers probably more serious than those which the cosmonauts faced.
It is the proof of a change in the mankind which it has now the means of playing of other stakes that lives of men, and that these exploits are those of an organized collective effort. Undoubtedly there will be still solitary champions, but what was born on the Moon it is another type of hero whose audacity is been useful, carried, guided, protected by the long effort from a whole civilization, of a whole time. Our emotion, it is that it is not only one of our contemporaries who is not directly or indirectly implied.
The Hispanic countries made of October 12, day when Christophe Colomb took its first step on the New World, one Day of the race which they all observe across their dissensions. Why not make of July 20 one day of the species, where, for once, all the people of the world could celebrate the common destiny from which they come to have the brightest symbol ?