NASA transcripts, 20 July 1969

NASA – Apollo 11 Mission Commentary 7-20-69 CDT 12:59 GET 100:27 [-GET 103:23]. [With:] Apollo 11 Mission Commentary 7-20-69 CDT 20:34 GET 108:02 [-GET 109:59].

“The Eagle has landed” (GET 102:43)
“One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for Mankind” (GET 109:20)

Original NASA transcripts of the Apollo 11 moon landing and the first steps on the moon. Together they cover the two most thrilling events of the Apollo 11 mission, watched by hundreds of millions of people around the Earth: the first manned lunar landing, and the first moonwalk. “GET” in the headers refers to Ground Elapsed Time, i.e. the hours and minutes since the launch. They comprise tape reels 295/2 to 313/1 and 330/2 to 347/1.

These documents were produced by the Public Affairs Office (PAO) in near real-time for distribution to interested press and dignitaries at Mission Control. Typists transcribed each tape; these typed transcripts were then copied on Xerox machines (3600–III most probably) and stapled into “fascicles” of approximately 26 pages each, with the entire Apollo mission transcript comprising 792 pages in total. Very few journalists retained complete copies for posterity—we are aware of only three genuine copies, being three sets of all 792 pages. One of these is Norman Mailer’s copy, which is heavily annotated by him and in the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin.

The present copy derives from the collection of the notorious late John Jenkins. He was a credentialed journalist as well as a bookdealer and he somehow managed to obtain a cache of original transcripts, which he claimed he had gathered up from the press rooms when the other journalists ran off to phone in their copy. However, it is also certain that Jenkins made forgeries of these transcripts to supplement his original stock. The forgeries (see the copy at the Morgan Library & Museum) can be distinguished by the different paper stocks, various artefacts of re-Xeroxing, and by the Xeroxed staple holes visible in the forged copies (the original staples needing to be removed for photocopying). We thank Dr. Neal Curtis for his detailed research on this topic, presented at the Rare Book School conference on Fakes and Forgeries.

Two fascicles, quarto (266 x 204mm). 27 and 26 stapled sheets respectively, xeroxed typescripts (a few very faint foxmarks to cover sheets). Custom cloth folders. Provenance: NASA Public Affairs Office – John Jenkins, 1940–1989 (his pencil inscriptions “First Moon Landing” and “First Steps on Moon” on the cover sheets and housed in Jenkins Bindery cloth folders).