“TV PICTURES SHOULD COME ANY MOMENT NOW.” The message flashes across the screen to reassure the impatient. It is July 20, 1969—or July 21, depending on where you’re watching from. Hundreds of millions have tuned in for the historic (a man on the moon), but the camera is still focused on the unceremonious (a corner of the room in NASA’s Mission Control at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston). Seconds later, the picture flickers on, upside down, then adjusts to catch Neil Armstrong, blurred and shadowy, descending to the lunar surface.
Four weeks later, a sharper, cartoon image of Armstrong’s moonwalk flashes on a giant screen at a ceremony in Houston to honor the Apollo 11 crew. Frank Sinatra takes the stage facing dozens of lights dotting the dark interior and looks up in awe: “How ’bout this place here?” He sings “Fly Me to the Moon,” dancing back and forth to take in the audience that surrounds him on all sides.1 Thousands have gathered in the Astrodome, the world’s first domed stadium, known at the time by practically everyone in the United States as “The Eighth Wonder of the World.”
