Charlie Duke and Fred Haise Apollo 11 Mission Control Signed Photograph.

DUKE, Charlie and Fred Haise.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 135611

Large black and white photograph of Apollo 11 Mission Control Capsule Communicator Charlie Duke, Fred Haise, and James Lovell, boldly signed by Duke with his famous words, “We copy you down eagle!” Signed by Duke in full, ‘”We copy you down eagle!’ Charlie Duke Apollo 11 CAPCOM July 20, 1969″ and by Haise, “Mission Control during man’s first lunar landing July 20, 1969 Fred Haise Apollo 11 BULMP.” In April 1966, Duke was one of nineteen men selected for NASA’s fifth group of astronauts. In 1969, he was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 10. He served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon. His distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world, as the voice of a Mission Control made nervous by a long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagle descent stage’s propellant. Duke’s first words to the Apollo 11 crew on the surface of the Moon were flustered, “Roger, Twank…Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot!” In fine condition. The photograph measures 20 inches by 16 inches. Rare.

Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent roughly two hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."