I have a recollection of sitting on my father's lap, next to our old Phillips vacuum tube radio, listening to the live commentary of the moon landing broadcast from, I think, the VOA. It was the morning of 21st July, 1969, in Goa (evening of 20th July in the USA). When Armstrong's famous first utterance came through, I remember clearly my father words, "Chandraar pavlo manis!"
Decades later I was to have as colleagues some of the people who had earlier worked on the Apollo programme. They were at that time well into their 60s and 70s. Apollo was an American effort, built by native born engineers and scientists, with crucial help from German experts most notably Dr. Wernher von Braun (Google "Operation Paperclip"). No Indian input here. No "Eye Eye Teeyans." As usual, Indians are only good at empty, infantile boasts. In the real world, the Indian contribution is negligible. (See https://blog.parrikar.com/2017/06/01/portraits-of-success/ <https://blog.parrikar.com/2017/06/01/portraits-of-success/?fbclid=IwAR2Bsoj4HvI2y5dmgS_XmYbC1MRgMSmhiR3foNUt0kL6d-690htqXA_DOKw> ) President Nixon had two speeches prepared. The speech not given (drafted in the event of a tragedy) is here - https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/19/the-speech-nixon-prepared-in-case-apollo-11-ended-in-tragedy r
