NASA and the Moon landing are interlinked but where does Australia fit in? The answer lies in the radio telescope located in a sheep paddock in rural New South Wales which played an important part in the Neil Armstrong mission. This role of the observatory in the Apollo 11 mission of 1969 put the small town of Parkes on the map of the moon. This equipment, the largest in the Southern hemisphere, had been identified by NASA to be the main receiving station for the TV coverage of the famous Moonwalk by Armstrong. However, during the transmission, there was a violent thunderstorm that very nearly uprooted the installation recalls two old hands Cooke and Mason who manned the giant telescopes on that eventful day.