Honeysuckle Creek : The Story of Tom Reid, a Little Dish and Neil Armstrong's First Step

by Andrew Tink

Honeysuckle Creek reveals the pivotal role that the tracking station at Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra, played in the first moon landing. Andrew Tink gives a gripping account of the role of its director Tom Reid and his colleagues in transmitting some of the most-watched images in human history as Neil Armstrong took his first step.

Part biography and part personal history, this book makes a significant contribution to Australia’s role in space exploration and reveals a story little known until now.

As Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr, the director of flight operations for Apollo 11, acknowledged: ‘The name Honeysuckle Creek and the excellence which is implied by that name will always be remembered and recorded in the annals of manned space flight’.

'A wonderful and inspirational story, beautifully told. As hard as it is to do this extraordinary yarn justice, Andrew Tink has done it.' — Peter FitzSimons

Genres: Nonfiction, Space, Science, History

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2018

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating account of the role played by Australia's Honeysuckle Creek tracking station in sending and receiving signals from the Apollo missions to land a man on the moon. Indeed it was Honeysuckle Creek that provided the images of Neil Armstrong's first step, and not Parkes as depicted in the movie The Dish. It would be nearly another 9 minutes before the moon was in the right position for Parkes to pick up the signal and the transmission was switched over to their stronger signal.

When the author, Andrew Tink began dating fellow law student, Marg Reid at ANU in 1972, he had no idea that her father, Tom Reid, the Director of Tidbinbilla deep space tracking station had been Director of Honeysuckle Creek at the time of the first moon landing. He describes Tom as a modest man with an "extreme, almost pathological, reluctance to talk abiout it." Some 40 years later, after Andrew had retired from his role as a NSW Member of Parliament and taken up writing biographies, he heard that Tom Reid had died. While researching for a segment on Apollo 11 that he wanted to include in an article, he began to read about Tom Reid's role in transmitting that famous moon walk to the world and delving further discovered that Tom Reid's role in the Apollo missions was so much more that he would have to write a biography.

The biography makes for compelling reading, not just about the man Tom Reid but also about the role of Australian tracking stations in the Mercury and Apollo missions. Andrew Tink writes superbly, to make what is a very technical field very readable and interesting. His research has been meticulous, covering Tom's childhood in Glasgow, his time with the Royal Navy where he was trained in radio and radar technology, followed by an engineering degree from Glasgow University and his subsequent migration to Australia to serve as an electrical officer in the Australian Navy before being recruited to Woomera to test and develop missiles.

I'm from the generation of school children who sat in their classrooms and auditoria watching or listening to the voices of Armstrong and Aldrin as they landed on the moon and took that historical walk. As a child I had scrapbooks full of news cuttings from the Apollo missions, but even if you were born much more recently than that, it's well worth reading about this special story of that particular time in history.

[Joanne Farley · Rating 4 out of 5]

9thIn in the interest of Full Disclosure I knew very little about Australia's role in the Apollo 11 mission. As it turned out what I did know was totally incorrect. I had no idea who Tom Reid was before reading this book and I had never even heard about the dish at Honeysuckle creek. I have recently became interested in everything Apollo related and when this book came up as part of a challenge I am doing I jumped at the chance to read it and get the inside story.
Really if all you know about our involvement in the moon mission is the movie The Dish, you have been totally mislead and you really need to read this novel.
It is a fascinating account of the life of Tom Reid and his invaluable input towards one of man's greatest achievements. Tom and his team made it possible for Australia to shine - I am at a loss to explain why this story has been so ignored/forgotten in our history.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a terrific read. What a fascinating life Tom Reid had.
Being a Canberran since 1970 there is always a lot less than 6 degrees of separation between anyone living here and I was often daydreaming about my own memories while reading this.
Margaret Reid was a very prominent figure in Canberra over the years and it's a testament to Tom's reticence to "blow his own horn" that he was a complete unknown to anyone but those in his circle.
This book is a really different take on the contributions to the NASA space flights and moon landing. While I knew some of it, there was much I didn't know.
My Father was born in Glasgow about 10 years after Tom Reid, and I found the chapters on his early life just as fascinating. Perhaps partly due to my own family connection.
The details of was happening at Woomera testing site were also new to me. I only knew about it being a bomb testing site and had not thought of the radar and communications that were being tested as a result.
Completely fascinating and highly recommended. Pretty sure there is something in this biography for anyone interested in detailed aspects of the historic first Moon landing 50 years ago, 20 July 2019. Especially for those interested in The Australian involvement in The Space Race.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly excellent read.

If you are remotely interested in electronics, computers, spaceships and landing men on the moon, this is the book for you.

The fact that it covers the entire life of Tom Reid, a quiet, unassuming man who in reality was larger than life, a man who was at the forefront of Australia's involvement in all that NASA achieved, is a bonus.

Peter Fitzsimons said of it, "A wonderful and inspirational story, beautifully told. As hard as it is to do this extraordinary yarn justice, Andrew Tink has done it." Now if that isn'y high praise, I don't know what is.

[Lee Belbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informed education about the remarkable life of Tom Reid, from navy electrician to the station manager at Honeysuckle Creek tracking station during the Apollo moon missions. I lived in Canberra from 1972 to 1995 and had some memories of visiting the three tracking stations (Tidbinbilla, Auroral Valley and Honeysuckle Creek).

[Alice Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the hoopla around the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 2019, there was a lot of misinformation about Australia's role in tracking the mission. This book sets the story straight: the images of the first steps which were broadcast around the world to 6 million people came from the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station in Canberra.

And the person in charge was Tom Reid. Andrew Tink tells the story of an unassuming man who ended up in the centre of this historic mission. Along the way he also tells stories of Australian space and politics, situating the story in Australia's changing role in the world.

The book is very readable whether you're interested in technology, history or space exploration. Tink has a deft touch and hits just the right balance. I really enjoyed it and learnt some new things too!

[Tom Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting story of Tom Reid who was the Director of Honeysuckle Creek tracking station during the first man on the moon Apollo mission. Very worth reading.

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dad lent me this book after he read it and realized that The Dish story he had enjoyed for many years was barely factual - Parkes had little to do with the moon landing, rather, it was the radiotelescope at honeysuckle creek that did the job. This is really two stories woven together - a biography of tom Reid, the director of the honeysuckle creek telescope during the moon landing, and the general build up to the moon landing as seen from an Australian perspective. Tom Reid, connected to the author indirectly, was a talented guy and illustrates the importance of both leadership and management in achieving challenging team-tasks. And while Australia did not have to put tether all the pieces nasa was managing, the role was essential (for geographical/political reasons) and stills complex task. The story highlights the difference between the us and soviet space race, a lesson in quality and safety winning in the long term despite appearing slower and more expensive in the short term.
It's a good story well told, but even with the two threads it seemed a little lean. Unfortunately, while Tom Reid's dour and modest nature is admirable, we learn little else about him beyond some of his professional achievements. Who was he beyond the roles he played? He is presented as a man who had a lot of character, but a lot of this remains hidden. A man of his times perhaps? Perhaps some of the details of others around him could be shown, for better or for worse, alongside the challenges they were going through.
Initially I thought it was perhaps just a slightly thin story, but my feeling is that there was a little more to be told. But it's one that Australians needed to have written up, and hopefully, with time, displacing the errors of the movie.

[Tara van Beurden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this book more than I did! Honeysuckle Creek was a tracking station in Canberra, Australia, in the 60s during the Apollo mission, supporting the Apollo program along with radio telescopes in Goldstone, California and Madrid, Spain. Honeysuckle Creek was actually the radio telescope responsible for relaying the first images of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, after a problem at Goldstone meant their images weren't good enough. Honeysuckle relayed the first 8 minutes of images, before Parkes Radio Telescope, in Parkes, New South Wales, Australia took over (it's much bigger). The story of Parkes was immortalised in one of the best Australian movies ever made, The Dish, which loosely implied that Parkes relayed those first few minutes. The author of this book knew the director of Honeysuckle Creek and decided to set the story straight. I thought this would be interesting enough, given my love of all things space, but what i wasn't expecting was for this book to spend most of its pages focusing on the life of that director, Tom Reid. Tom was undoubtedly a great man, but the book spent far more time talking about Tom than it did about Honeysuckle Creek, Apollo, or space tracking. The last fifty pages are by far the best, as it covers the actual walk on the moon, and the pace picks up (the first 200 pages feels like it says the same thing over and over). Tink's writing style also struck me as needing finesse. This probably could have been a chapter within a broader book, or an editorial or academic paper - there's just not enough story for a book. A shame.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is mostly a book about Tom Reid, a brilliant man, the real treat is in the story of how Australia helped to communicate with the astronauts who went to the moon and helped to put their story on television. For those of us who grew up in the age of Sputnik, this will all sound familiar. The difference is added information that is from an Australian, not an American or Russian. It is pretty much without bias. However, it was noted that the Russians did not care for the safety of their space people or dogs. While the beginning is a bit of a slog, the rest of the book is fascinating. Relive the excitement of Neal Armstrong stepping on the moon, and the sheer excitement of the global scientists who helped to get him there.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit slow to start. Very enjoyable, especially the second half of the book which was mainly about events at Honeysuckle.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about the role Tom Reid and his team (and Australia) did in the NASA program. The movie “The Dish” has it wrong…

[David Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have solved the two mathematical problems on page 32 of the book first solution and second solution.

[Ian Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read!