When Apollo 11 crew commander Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module, Eagle, and onto the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, some 650 million people on earth watched the historic event unfold on their television sets. Roger Fuyarchuk, a young boy at his home in Beauvallon at the time, was among them.
He recalls being mesmerized by what he was witnessing and Armstrong’s words as he became the first man to walk on the moon would become forever etched in Fuyarchuk's memory - “. . . one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
This event sparked a lifelong fascination with space and space travel for Fuyarchuk, who still lives and farms in the Beauvallon area. As the world celebrated the 50th anniversary in July of this year of Armstrong’s walk on the moon, Fuyarchuk recognized the anniversary in his own unique way by purchasing a piece of memorabilia from the Armstrong family’s collection – a signed photograph of Armstrong in his NASA space suit.
“I remember watching the first landing on the moon and, since then, have always had the interest.”
On July 16, 50 years to the date since Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy in Florida, Fuyarchuk participated in an online auction hosted by Heritage Auction in Dallas, Texas, the third of its kind by the auction house featuring Armstrong-related items connected to the Apollo 11 mission. He was shocked when he found out he was the successful bidder on the photograph as he was up against an interested buyer who was on the auction house floor in Dallas.
“I just about fell off the chair.”
The photograph was among several pieces of memorabilia released by The Armstrong Family Collection for auction and Fuyarchuk considers himself lucky to now be in possession of one of those commemorative items.
For Fuyarchuk the moon landing was “the greatest thing in humankind’s history.”
The primary objective of the three-man crew, which also included command module pilot Michael Collins and lunar module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, was to complete a crewed lunar landing and return safely to earth. It was a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
“The Apollo 11 mission to the moon was the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice, not only for our father, but also for the hundreds of thousands of people who worked together to realize this goal. Their work serves as a shining example of what we can accomplish when we dare to dream the impossible and then harness the immense power of our human potential and to achieve those dreams,” states the Letter of Provenance, which speaks to the photograph’s authenticity, from Armstrong’s two sons, Mark and Rick.
Armstrong was one of nine astronauts selected by NASA in 1962. He died at the age of 82 in 2012.
Over the years, Fuyarchuk has built a treasured collection of space memorabilia, including a commemorative medallion which was aboard the 1965 Gemini IV, a mission in which astronaut Edward White became the first American to walk in space, floating outside the space capsule on a tether. White was to die two years later in 1967 during pre-flight testing for the first crewed Apollo mission when the command module caught on fire, killing all three crew members on board.
“They all have a story,” Fuyarchuk said of the pieces in his collection, which also includes autographs from Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space in 1961, and John Glenn, the first NASA astronaut to orbit earth in 1962.
Fuyarchuk’s hope is that the heroic endeavours of the world’s first astronauts will not soon be forgotten.
It seems only fitting that in August of 2017, Joshua Kutryk, with ties to the Beauvallon area, was named by the Canadian Space Agency as the country’s newest astronaut. It’s a significant accomplishment, according to Fuyarchuk, who looks forward to witnessing what comes next in humankind's exploration of space.
