Man On The Moon

Due to the recent sad death of Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, i though i'd take a little sidetrack with this trawl through my vinyl singles.

This is indeed a 45rpm single release, but it is obviously a little different to "normal" releases. For a start it contains no music whatsoever, just speech.

As you may already have guessed, this single was a souvenir release. Pressed exclusively for the, now extinct, News Of The World newspaper here in the UK.
It came out on the Philips label, with a serial number of '88457 DE' and is from 1969, the year of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

As i have mentioned in a YouTube video that i recorded yesterday, i was 11 years old at the time of the Apollo 11 mission. So, it had a profound effect on me, as indeed did the whole of the NASA space program.
For my personal memories of the Apollo 11 moon landing please watch the aforementioned video.

I suspect that this souvenir single was bought for me by my parents, as i was an avid watcher of all things NASA and Apollo back in 1969.
But, it wasn't just any ordinary single, as you can see from this photo of some of what elsecame with it:

Apart from the actual single itself, which was double sided and played at 45rpm, there were two fold out inserts. You can see the one that includes a photo of the Apollo 11 Saturn 5 rocket launch, above. The other included the front cover shot, the photo of the three Apollo 11 astronauts seen above and also a picture of "Eagle", the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.

Also seen above, is the fold out insert that had the complete transcript of the contents of the single printed onto it. The single was basically edited recordings of the Apollo 11 mission.
It starts with a recording of part of U.S President John F Kennedy's famous speech committing the USA to go to the moon in the 1960's

Other contents include the launch of Apollo 11, the lunar landing and then coverage of that historic first ever moon walk by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. This is done by using the audio commentary from Mission Control at the time and also communication between them and the astronauts themselves. It even includes audio of the phone call made by President Richard Nixon to Armstrong and Aldrin during their moon walk.

As an added bonus, the other side of the fold out inserts includes more information about the mission. Including this diagram of the trajectory of the Apollo 11 space craft, on its way to the moon and back.

I can remember playing this single many, many times and used to be able to recite much of the dialogue included on it. I could still, quite probably, do that now.
Whenever i hear, or see footage of that historic mission i sometimes find myself reciting the dialogue in my head.
Well, it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences wasn't it? One that i'm very pleased to have lived through and also to have watched live, as it actually happened.

I have no idea what, if anything, this single might be worth, especially in the light of Neil Armstrong's death. But, i do know that it is something that i would never want to part with.
It holds far too many treasured memories for me to do that.
It really is a little slice of history, imprinted onto vinyl.