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party line was incomprehensible,' Jim Lovell later said. 9 Joan was helped through some of the more complicated things by Apollo 9 veteran Rusty Schweickart. That morning she had attended the Presbyterian church where Buzz was an elder, taking with her their children Michael, Jan and Andy. Reporters had tried to capture a comment as she entered but Joan had waved them away before settling down to listen to a sermon about the 'epitome of the creative ability of man'. 10 She was home by 11.30, and while she waited for the landing to get under way she watched the continuous TV coverage. Friends from church had brought lunch, including a cake with icing in the shape of an American flag beside the words 'we came in peace for all mankind'. 11 At her home in the suburb of El Lago, Janet was also watching the TV coverage, while Bill Anders, a member of the backup crew, tried to answer her questions about the landing. 'What can go wrong and they can still go?' she asked. 'It depends on what went wrong,' Anders told her. 12

Since the launch, four days earlier, Janet, Joan and Pat had been keeping open house, with a steady stream of friends and relatives bringing them food and other gifts. Among those staying with Joan was Jeannie Bassett, who was helping to look after the children. 13 Entering or leaving the crew's homes meant having to push through throngs of reporters camped outside. On the first day of the flight a photographer had sneaked over Joan's back fence, which had upset her. 14 She very much wanted to give the right image to the press, but on her terms, and on the morning of the second day she made a point of raising the American flag on her front lawn to give them an early picture. Her duties done, she and the children sneaked out of the back of the house and into the car of a waiting friend who whisked them off to a shopping centre 12 miles away. 15 Janet had spent much of the second day clearing leaves from the pool, before settling down to watch the TV broadcast in the evening. Joan also caught the broadcast, she and Jeannie helping the children to identify the voices as the crew described the Earth. 'You'd better watch yourselves, boys – you're going to run out of material,' she joked. 'Especially those three,' quipped somebody in the background. When Pat saw the broadcast she discovered Mike was growing a moustache. 16

Despite attempts to remain light-hearted, by the third day the pressure was beginning to take its toll. Pat and Janet joined Joan for a pool party, the three of them giving a joint picture for the press. Reporters had managed to put questions to the children after Pat dropped them off at a day camp en route to the party. When six-year-old Michael was asked if his daddy was going to go down in history, he replied, 'Yeah,' but gave as good as he got when he asked, 'What is history?' 17 When Pat went to get her hair done on the morning of the fourth day, three female reporters had managed to get appointments at the same time and at the same place. Later that day, listening to radios and squawk boxes, the wives waited for the men to safely come round from the far side of the Moon after LOI-1. Janet had been briefed by Apollo 10 commander Tom Stafford so that she would feel prepared ahead of the landing. That night, while her family and friends accepted a dinner invitation from next door, Janet stayed at home, preferring to eat alone. 18

The following morning, Sunday 20 July, the Aldrin family attended the packed service at Webster Presbyterian Church. After the sermon, the Reverend Dean Woodruff broke the Communion bread and held it up for everyone to see, pointing out that a piece was missing. The implication was that it had gone with Buzz. He called on the Aldrin household later that afternoon, listening to the transmissions and sharing the tension during the radio silences. 19 For 48 minutes in every two-hour orbit, the crew were out of contact with the Earth. During their fourteenth circuit of the