Word: mooned
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...darkness of 5 a.m., when the brilliantly floodlit rocket gives off rays of light like a star sapphire, it seems entirely possible that so beautiful a machine might reach the moon. But with sunrise and the reappearance of the normal landscape, doubt intrudes; eventually, at a distance of three miles, the rocket seems to shrink in size and magic until it becomes an act of almost Promethean gall to aim it at the heavens...
...Apollo 11 astronauts will face a reception far different from those accorded to previous space heroes on their return to earth. There will be no casual camaraderie with the frogmen after splashdown, no lengthy welcoming rites aboard the recovery carrier, no embraces with their wives in Houston. The moon voyagers will be treated-literally-as if they had the plague...
...guard against the remote possibility that they are harboring unknown lunar organisms that might endanger life on earth, the astronauts will be forced to exchange the isolation of space for a terrestrial variety nearly as lonely. For 21 days after Apollo leaves the moon, they will be in quarantine...
...Apollo hatch is opened; alien organisms inside the spacecraft could take these opportunities to escape into the air and the sea. Space officials consider that an extremely remote possibility. Says Persa Bell, director of NASA's Lunar Receiving Laboratory: "The chance of bringing anything harmful back from the moon is probably one in a hundred billion...
...Apollo 11 hurtled through the heavens to land two Americans on the moon, it seemed as if all mankind were kin. Whether in stilt-supported houses over the canals of Bangkok or by the azure swimming pools of Beverly Hills, families sat mesmerized before the flickering history unfolding on their television screens. Along London's Piccadilly and Tokyo's Ginza, crowds and traffic thinned as the launch began. In West Berlin, as in South Nyack, N.Y., there was a rare sense of camaraderie. Strangers on the street were united by the universal question: "How are they doing...