July 1969: The Apollo 11 mission

How do you mark the most significant achievement in the history of mankind? The Apollo landings of the late 60s and early 70s are still seen as the high water mark of humanity, and as The Engineer pointed out, much of the millions of words of press coverage of the first mission to land, Apollo 11, was concerned with the human stories of the three astronauts on board.

Admirably sticking to its remit, The Engineer decided it would be apt to focus instead upon the machinery that would be taking our first extraplanetary pioneers a quarter of a million miles from the Earth's surface to the moon’s, and back again in safety.

In a special issue entitled "The Mightiest Machine in the World", the magazine explained this decision. "Not surprisingly the stage has been dominated by the three astronauts who will land on the moon. We join with all men of goodwill in wishing them success. But the welter of publicity focused on the astronauts casts a long shadow which tends to obscure the extraordinary achievements of the thousands of specialists whose technical accomplishments have made the moon landing feasible." One notable quirk of the coverage is that with typical British formality, the issue consistently refuses to use the name Buzz Aldrin, instead referring to him always by his given name of Edwin.