9:31:50 AM (Florida East Coast time) The Saturn V liftoff. Arthur Clarke, author of A Space Odyssey, recalls thinking, “At the launch, I cried for the first time in twenty years and prayed for the first time in forty years. ” Walter Cronkite, on the other hand, said, “Everything else that has happened in our time will be a footnote compared to this event.” Finally, von Braun: “I think it is as significant as the moment in evolution when aquatic life emerged from the water.”
