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i'm randi kaye. tens of thousands of nasa employees worked on apollo 11 to put the first man on the moon. you got to meet some of them tonight. one unique individual came to our attention as the film was being researched. turns out there was only one woman allowed in the control room during the launch. her remarkable story has been mostly hidden all these years. she played a critical role, and as we learned, spending time with her, she remembers it well. here's her story. >> we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. >> the space program in the early '60s was dominated by men. but during the historic launch of apollo 11 on july 16th, 1969 one woman stood out in a sea of men in the control room. 28-year-old joann morgan.
>> i was the instrumentation controller. the instrumentation controller needs to know is there a problem? if so, i need to tell the right people in the test team. >> so how did you end up the only woman in the firing room during the launch of apollo 11? >> my director of information systems called me in. he said, you're our best my director called me in. he said you're our best communicator. we're going to have you on the console. later i found out he had to go convince the center director that it would be okay. >> do you think it had to go all the way to the top for the men in the firing room? >> heck no. >> exactly. >> no, i don't think so. >> growing up, joanne had a love for science and learning. >> joanne was an insatiable reader. she skipped the fifth grade. she didn't want a doll. she would much rather have a chemistry set or an erector set
or something she could build or do. >> at 17 she interned at the ballistic agency and went on to become the first missile engineer at cape canaveral. so what was it like when you first started at nasa? >> it was pretty intense it was all men and a lot of the buildings i worked in didn't have ladies' restroom. >> just like in the movie "hidden figures," she had to go to a different building or use the men's room. >> sometime during tests, the guard was just great. he would say, you need a little break. i'll police the men's room. >> how did the guys handle it? >> they tried not to notice. if i had to go, i had to go. >> when joanne first started working in the firing room, she also got some obscene phone calls. >> one time when one of them
came through, i slammed the phone down. and one of the television operators from the station downstairs came up and he said, is something wrong? is something wrong? and i am, yeah. he said the look on your face. has there been a death in the family? i said no. an obscene phone call. i never let myself feel like an object. i was not going to be an object. you know? i just had too much fearlessness in me to let that be any kind of deterrent. >> roy tharpe sat next to joanne in the firing room. >> we were all men. joanne was there and she was a looker. you could never pull anything over on her because she would take and cut you to pieces, because technically, she was extremely competent. >> she held her own with the guys. >> she held her own. no doubt about it. >> were there some men who didn't want her in there?
>> right. there were some men. we would counsel our guys. she had the moxie to be in the position of being the only woman in the firing room for apollo 11. >> 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, liftoff >> i got to feel the launch. the vibration of the liftoff once the shock wave hit the building. the false floor shook. my console shook. it was so slow. it just lumbers and you think it will never get off the ground. it just creeps and creams. so there's just a little moment of horror. will this thing go? once it's gone, it's like, okay. come on, engine. just burn perfectly for me.
>> after the apollo 11 launch, your job was basically over. where did you watch the actual moon landing? >> my husband is a school teacher and he was wanting to go on a fishing trip and go to the key on the gulf of mexico. that evening we had a great dinner and a bottle of champagne and we went back to watching with everybody else. >> tranquility base here. the eagle has landed. >> we copy on the ground. you have a bunch of guys about to turn blue. we're breathing again. thanks a lot. >> we were sitting there watching and it was so dramatic. >> that's one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind. >> and my husband looked at me and he said, you are going to be in the history books. >> after apollo 11, joanne's career took off. over 45 years from 1958 to 2003,
she continued to break barriers and became the first female senior executive at the kennedy space center. >> when you looked at joanne and the way she worked the polyand the way she did things, she had greatness. >> do you think you would be where you are today without someone like joanne morgan? >> no. she was a champion for me. a huge inspiration to all of us to say you can do this. >> i'm very proud that we got away from too pale, too male, too stale. joanne brought young ladies in who were very smart and they held their own. so i know she can look in the mirror and smile, yes, i did that. >> you've been described as fearless. how do you feel about that? where does that come from? >> i think it comes from that tiny little child seeing my dad go off to war. and my dad turning around and
saying, little jo, you're in charge. he saluted and off he went. my grandmother. i saw you get your bossy on. >> did you get your bossy on at nasa? >> yes, i did. i had to get my bossy on sometimes. i always played piano. for many years, i thought i would be a piano teacher. my track changed after my dad moved us to florida and i saw the rocket launches. that was the hook. i thought this was going to change the way i live in. i'm getting in on it. >> you're retired now in montana. there was a point where you wanted to retire on mars. >> i thought they should have a geriatric program. 15 years ago i would have been a volunteer. >> nasa is talking about having a woman walk on the moon by 2024. does that excite you? >> i think it is very appropriate.

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