kinds of lighting we have available to us.… And I suspect that you will be somewhat disappointed at those pictures. I hope that you’ll recognize that it’s just one of the problems that you face in an environment like the lunar surface and it’ll be some time before wereally get high quality in our lunar surface pictures back on TV link.”
It was the one time he had spoken without many pauses, almost as if he were talking already to the TV audience rather than to reporters, almost as if he just simply believed that Americans were entitled to good television—one of their inalienable rights. And now, up before the TV cameras, Armstrong looked not at all uncomfortable at the thought of being presented to some forty or fifty million viewers.
Indeed, Aquarius was to see cool pieces and parts of the half hour in thirty-second segments, minute segments and two-minute segments over the next few weeks, particularly during the days of the flight. During many a pause on the trip to the moon, the TV screen would cut to the face of Armstrong, Aldrin or Collins standing or sitting with the blue-green wall of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory behind him. Whether the filmed insertion was to elucidate some remark of the commentators, or merely to fill some frayed space in the ongoing hours of exposition and recapitulation, the effect after having seen ten concrete bits from this interview was to recognize that a new species of commercial was being evolved. NASA was vending space. Armstrong was working directly for his corporate mill. Despite the fact that this future audience of forty million would be listening and studying him, he spoke without long pauses, and seemed oddly enough to be at ease, a salesman with a clear modest mild soft sell. But, then, Aquarius decided, it was not really so very odd. If Armstrong’s most recognizable passion was to safeguard his privacy, a desire which approached the force of sanctuary to him, then there was nothing on television he would be likely to reveal or betray. He came, after all, from that heartland of American life which had first induced the particular public personality now bequeathed to all TV viewers as the most viable decorum—that intolerable mixture of bland agreeability and dissolved salt which characterized all performers who appeared in public each day for years and prospered. That view of the world, if designing a face, would have snubbed thenose, faded out the color of the eyes, snugged the lips, slicked the hair and dispensed with the ears for they were protuberances with obscene interior curves—first cousins to the navel.
Armstrong was being interviewed by Frank McGee who turned in a good workmanlike job. McGee, a friendly fellow with a bony face and eyeglasses (whose frames whether tortoiseshell, plastic or pale gold would be remembered afterward as silver wire), had a personality all reminiscent of a country parson, a coach of a rifle team or the friendly investigator from a long-established high-minded insurance company. He was obviously the very ring-tailed hawk of Waspitude.
Their collaboration on the questions and responses had the familiar comfort of piety. Armstrong came near to chatting with him. It was implicit to Network Nugatory that a chatty tone went hand in hand with the pious. So the dullest but most functional, which is to say the most impermeable side of Armstrong was naturally presented. He responded soberly, even chastely to questions about whether he had been elated when chosen—“I have to say that I was”—but quickly added that there could have been many pitfalls during the waiting period (such as intervening flights, which might not succeed) and so he had not indulged any large excitement at any particular period.
He was determinedly modest, going clear out of his way to specify that he was certain the Apollo 12 crew was as competent as his own to make this first trip to the moon, and went on once again to give credit for success to all the
It was the one time he had spoken without many pauses, almost as if he were talking already to the TV audience rather than to reporters, almost as if he just simply believed that Americans were entitled to good television—one of their inalienable rights. And now, up before the TV cameras, Armstrong looked not at all uncomfortable at the thought of being presented to some forty or fifty million viewers.
Indeed, Aquarius was to see cool pieces and parts of the half hour in thirty-second segments, minute segments and two-minute segments over the next few weeks, particularly during the days of the flight. During many a pause on the trip to the moon, the TV screen would cut to the face of Armstrong, Aldrin or Collins standing or sitting with the blue-green wall of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory behind him. Whether the filmed insertion was to elucidate some remark of the commentators, or merely to fill some frayed space in the ongoing hours of exposition and recapitulation, the effect after having seen ten concrete bits from this interview was to recognize that a new species of commercial was being evolved. NASA was vending space. Armstrong was working directly for his corporate mill. Despite the fact that this future audience of forty million would be listening and studying him, he spoke without long pauses, and seemed oddly enough to be at ease, a salesman with a clear modest mild soft sell. But, then, Aquarius decided, it was not really so very odd. If Armstrong’s most recognizable passion was to safeguard his privacy, a desire which approached the force of sanctuary to him, then there was nothing on television he would be likely to reveal or betray. He came, after all, from that heartland of American life which had first induced the particular public personality now bequeathed to all TV viewers as the most viable decorum—that intolerable mixture of bland agreeability and dissolved salt which characterized all performers who appeared in public each day for years and prospered. That view of the world, if designing a face, would have snubbed thenose, faded out the color of the eyes, snugged the lips, slicked the hair and dispensed with the ears for they were protuberances with obscene interior curves—first cousins to the navel.
Armstrong was being interviewed by Frank McGee who turned in a good workmanlike job. McGee, a friendly fellow with a bony face and eyeglasses (whose frames whether tortoiseshell, plastic or pale gold would be remembered afterward as silver wire), had a personality all reminiscent of a country parson, a coach of a rifle team or the friendly investigator from a long-established high-minded insurance company. He was obviously the very ring-tailed hawk of Waspitude.
Their collaboration on the questions and responses had the familiar comfort of piety. Armstrong came near to chatting with him. It was implicit to Network Nugatory that a chatty tone went hand in hand with the pious. So the dullest but most functional, which is to say the most impermeable side of Armstrong was naturally presented. He responded soberly, even chastely to questions about whether he had been elated when chosen—“I have to say that I was”—but quickly added that there could have been many pitfalls during the waiting period (such as intervening flights, which might not succeed) and so he had not indulged any large excitement at any particular period.
He was determinedly modest, going clear out of his way to specify that he was certain the Apollo 12 crew was as competent as his own to make this first trip to the moon, and went on once again to give credit for success to all the
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