As the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first landing of man on the moon, an American endeavor that went down in the annals of history. But DW takes a different angle on this anniversary reminding us that the Apollo program relied on a global network of tracking stations and their engineers.
Zulfikar Abbany writes that th he Apollo space program is an American story. Most definitely. It’s a Cold War story, too — of a Free World against a closed, communist world.
And in that sense, he emphasizes it’s a global story.
In his piece for DW, Zulfikar writes that at any rate, the Americans couldn’t have done it without the rest of the world. Not even without the Russians. They were the first to put a person in space.
That was the spur in America’s hind. That was politics.
He also reminds us that from a technical point of view, the Americans drew on expertise from around the world. Technicians and engineers from Europe and Australia, companies in the UK. And those tracking stations, where local technicians worked side-by-side with the Americans.
He also speaks to various people around the world who 50 years ago played a crucial role in making the Apollo 11 mission a historical success.
Read more at DW
