Discussions and grilling: these are the star tours of Apollo 11 astronauts in Argentina

Only 74 days have elapsed since the date of the Tripunalientes of Apollo XI, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, concretizes the fact of reaching the moon. In October 1969, the first two arrived in Argentina as part of a tour organized by different countries to review their results. The third had to wait a dozen years to arrive in the country and fanatise with the meat.

A little more than a month after the quarantine to which they were subjected – where they were visited and discussed through an "aquarium" with the then US President Richard Nixon"astronauts have been sent to travel the world". On October 2, 1969, Armstrong and Collins landed at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Airport.but what about Aldrin? In Peru, before the arrival of the mission, the second man who walked on the Moon had to return to a call from the base where he served and therefore did not reach Argentine soil. He had to wait a decade and the invitation of a television producer to do it.

Stay During the two days they spent in Buenos Aires, Armstrong and Collins rested at the Alvear Hotel of the Recoleta and, accompanied by the American Ambbadador to Argentina, David Lodge, were received at Casa Rosada by de facto President Juan Carlos Onganía.

Then they had a series of discussions and continued their tour with a stopover in Chile. Shortly after, the North American government sent to all countries that sponsored the Apolo 11 mission a small sample of the Moon's soil, exhibited in Argentina in the Buenos Aires Planetarium.

The peculiarity is that, for Armstrong, it was not the first visit to the country, but the second, because in 1966, three years before becoming the first man to walk on the moon, he surrendered at a symposium of the National Activities Committee. Space (CONAE).

Aldrin is back. In 1979, with moivo the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the man on the moon, Eduardo Metzger, historical producer of Cbad 13 and the program Monica presents (led by Monica Cahen D & # 39; Antwerp) proposed a goal: that the three protagonists of the exploit, or at least one of them, came to Argentina. It was as good as she had been contacted by NASA and got Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, to visit the country. In dialogue with PROFILE He remembered how was this "negotiation".

"I contacted NASA people a few months before the 10th anniversary of this feat to invite Armstrong, but they told me that he had a very comprehensive agenda at the time, like the others, but that he could then He agreed to come without signing anything, without obligation, we only supported the trip and his stay, accompanied by an Argentine engineer working for NASA., he had four days, he attended the program and was also invited by some graphic media to appear in his magazines. In caring for him, it was found that he was a kind person, simple and of above-average intelligence: he was the mastermind of the mission of Apollo XI. When I asked him what had hit him the most on the moon, he replied, "You can not imagine what the white color looks like on the moon". He had a remarkable brilliance on the moon and that's what struck him the most"he said.

In this sense, Metzger recalled: "He asked me to take her lunch and we went to a place – which no longer exists – called La Cabaña which was on the island. Entre Ríos avenue and beyond. he liked it and confirmed what the Argentinian who was working with him at NASA on the meat had told him: a T-Bone was asked, a high steak that is said like that for the letter T that forms the bone, and he liked it. We prepared him a list of things to do in Buenos Aires and he was always predisposed. We did not feel that he was facing someone who had done something so big. On Aldrin 's memo day with Monica, reporters from all other media came into the studio to cover him and some of them were able to converse with him during an informal conversation. which happened behind the camera. "

Panoramic photos of the moon taken by Apollo astronauts

Contact with the three heroes. "I also met Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins when they arrived in 1969, because at the time I was working on the program Saturdays more on channel 9, and they visited La Rural in Palermo for an exhibition of replicas of items that were taken to the moon. It was chaotic that day, because there were a lot of people, "said the former producer, who also said, in his vision of television:" The arrival of the man on the moon has been the first satellite image to enter Argentina. these were some moments of the trip. The notes of that moment were hugenothing else has attracted so much interest. "