The recent 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's famous walk on the moon brought back memories for a lot of people.
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But a mysterious Apollo Achievement Award presented to Falls Creek woman Kathy McKeough's father James Joseph Howe from NASA sparked a family investigation.
Known as Jim, Mrs McKeough didn't even know her father had been involved in the Apollo 11 moon project.
Through some investigations, talking to her some of her siblings, and some of her father's work colleagues, his role has been discovered.
"Dad never spoke about it [the moon mission]," she said.
"I was 18 and wasn't living at home at the time. Mum and Dad were living at Glebe."
At the time Mr Howe was working for the PMG, the Post Master General, which eventually morphed into Telecom and later Telstra.
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"I asked some family members about the certificate and no one had any ideas," she said.
From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the certificate, which was found among his possessions when he died in 1990, is an Apollo Achievement Award.
It states...
In appreciation of the dedicated service to the nation as a member of the team which has advanced the nation's capabilities in aeronautics and space and demonstrated them in many outstanding accomplishments culminating on the Apollo 11's successful achievement of man's first landing on the moon, July 20, 1969.
It was signed in Washington D.C, by the then administrator of NASA, Thomas O Paine.
"Dad was a supervising technician and travelled a lot with his job but we had no idea he was involved in the Apollo 11 project," Mrs McKeough said.
As part of a public relations exercise it was decided that a television set would be placed in the window of the Pitt Street Post Office to show the moon landing to the passing public. For security reasons the television pictures were to go to America, be censored, and then sent to the post office television. The television pictures were inadvertently sent from Parkes directly to the post office so that the public watching that television set saw the pictures before anyone else on earth. It was some time before the mistake was noticed.
The hunt for information began - it was thought he might have worked at Honeysuckle Creek out of Canberra but inquiries with an internet page dedicated to the tracking station turned up a blank.
The family was able to contact one of Jim's former work colleagues Dennis Barbour, who filled in a few of the gaps.
"Jim was a supervising technician in the City South Carrier Terminal which was located on the fourth and fifth floors of the City South Telephone Exchange at 219 Castlereagh Street, Sydney," he said.
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"Jim was in charge of shifts on a rotating 24-hour roster and oversaw the day to day maintenance and operations of the carrier terminal.
"In the 1960 and 1970 decades there were only four television stations. The programs from these stations were switched to other centres via the Television Operations Centre located in the City South Carrier Room. Jim oversaw the operations in this area.
"Jim was highly involved in all aspects of the NASA moon program.
"When the American moon landing program was planned a means of providing dedicated communications with American control centres such Houston was required.
"The City South Carrier Terminal had a room specially built for NASA. All signals to and from the Apollo space vehicles and television pictures received at the Parkes Radio Telescope and Canberra Deep Space Communications at Tidbinbilla were routed through the NASA control room.
"As part of a public relations exercise it was decided that a television set would be placed in the window of the Pitt Street Post Office to show the moon landing to the passing public.
"For security reasons the television pictures were to go to America, be censored, and then sent to the post office television.
"The television pictures were inadvertently sent from Parkes directly to the post office so that the public watching that television set saw the pictures before anyone else on earth."
He said it was some time before the mistake was noticed.
At the time of the Apollo missions all signals and pictures were sent overseas via the OTC International Gateway Exchange at Paddington and then via OTC's Moree Satellite Communications Centre or the Pacific cable.
Any signals to America from City South would also be sent via the OTC International Gateway.
Pictures and signals from Carnarvon, Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes telescopes were sent to Sydney Video at OTC International Gateway Exchange at Paddington via PMG cables and microwave links and then to OTC's Moree Satellite Communications Centre.
These pictures were at the US standard of 525 lines.
The pictures from Sydney Video at OTC were also sent via the PMG's Television Operations Centre at City South to the ABC's Gore Hill television studio to convert to the Australian television standard of 625 lines for transmission in Australia.
Several exchanges were used by NASA as part of their operations including City South Carrier Room and Deakin Telephone Exchange in Canberra.
"City South was part of a vast network required for a successful Apollo operation," Mr Barbour said.
"Many, many details were not mentioned and are not known to me but Jim's expertise and experience in carrier communications would have been invaluable in installing and maintaining the very complex NASA communications network.
"His certificate of achievement from NASA definitely shows the importance of his participation."
Incredibly, Mrs McKeough, was one of 18 children born to Jim and Kathleen, known as Molly, Howe, however one of her siblings died at just a month old.
When Kathy and her twin sister were born the couple had 10 children under the age of nine.
"Dad was one of 14, mum was one of three but she'd always wanted a big family and she certainly got it with 12 boys, who all played hockey and six girls, who were all netballers.
"It's great to be able to fill in some of the blanks and figure out what this certificate was all about."
Kathy married well-known former Nowra Chamber Magistrate Brian McKeough in 1971 with Mr McKeough saying he never heard his father-in-law talk about his involvement in the Apollo mission.
"But that doesn't surprise," he said " he was a very humble man. A very modest man."