Lunar landing: Dick Dunne

Dick Dunne,71, of West Islip, was Grumman's head of public affairs for the lunar module project. He's now retired.

For Grumman to be selected was certainly an honor. Grumman made its reputation during the Second World War, but Grumman was not one of the people in the space business.

Designing a vehicle to land on the moon had never been done before, and it was being done by airplane designers. . . . It is the first true spacecraft because it only operated in space.

Grumman, in all its naiveté, decided that this [the moon landing] may be a news event and how are they [the media] going to be able to absorb all this information? I pulled together the press reference book for the LM, had everything described in laymen's terms, and I gave courses to Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman to educate them on how the LM worked.

We had a disaster plan, a statement that we would issue [if things went wrong]. . . . Two astronauts stranded on the moon. You knew that was a possibility. I don't care who you talk to, there was always that gnawing doubt that it wouldn't work.

I was 32 years old, and it was the best time of my life - I didn't realize it at the time. . . . We covered every launch from launch to splashdown.