MISSION CONTROL: While we’ve all got our eyes to the sky this month for the solar eclipse, we thought it would be a good time to talk about another time America looked to the stars: the Apollo 11 mission.

Reader Marlene Eaton told us about a current campaign to raise money for the restoration of the Apollo 11 Mission Control.

“There’s a campaign to raise $5 million,” said Marlene. “Maybe we have people in this area that remembers how the mission control center was used.”

According to Space Center Houston, the organization organizing the fundraising effort, “The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to first land a man on the moon will take place in 2019. Its Mission Control — where NASA’s flight control team planned, trained and executed decades of Gemini, Apollo and early shuttle human spaceflight missions — is in acute need of restoration.”

Neil Armstrong, “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins left for the mission on July 16, 1969, and Neil was the first man to step on the moon on July 20, 1969.

“The restoration of the room, also called the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR), will feature the authentic consoles used to monitor nine Gemini, all Apollo moon missions and 21 space shuttle missions,” Space Center Houston stated. “They include the flight of Apollo 11 that first landed men on the moon, the Apollo 13 that famously experienced an in-flight emergency and 40 other space missions.

“This important site was named in 1985 to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historical significance and worthiness of preservation. Only through the efforts of Space Center Houston can the general public visit the control room area and experience its authenticity.”

Marlene had asked about people’s memories of those space missions, and we’d love to hear them, too.

How old were you when you saw the first human walk on the moon? How did your view of the world change because of it? What sort of technology did you think we would have now — nearly 50 years later?

A crowdfunding effort hosted by Space Center Houston called “The Webster Challenge: Restore Historic Mission Control” will last through Saturday. Of that $5 million, $3.5 million was gifted from the City of Webster.

You can read more about the campaign here: https://spacecenter.org/giving/restore-mission-control/