FOR newsmen covering a major story, a succession of 18-and 20-hour days is not in the least unusual. But for TIME'S Apollo space team, the days have grown into weeks. Associate Editor Leon Jaroff and Senior Editor Ronald Kriss had no sooner wrapped up our 14-page special Moon Supplement than they were right back at work, with only one day of rest, writing and editing this week's cover story on the historic mission itself. And this time the work stretched on for eight uninterrupted days. Although TIME ordinarily closes on Saturday evening, we felt compelled to hold the magazine open until Monday, in order to report the climax of man's first attempt to walk on the moon.

At Cape Kennedy, Correspondents David Lee and Joseph Kane were joined by Senior Editor Peter Bird Martin and Contributing Editor Larry DuBois, who had flown down from New York to record firsthand impressions of the massive press, radio and TV coverage--and indeed share the feelings of the million or more other space watchers at the Cape during those awesome moments of blastoff.

Meanwhile, in Houston, the rest of TIME'S Apollo reportorial team --Correspondents Don Neff and James Schefter and Bureau Secretary Rose Graham--had set up operations in a motel directly across the street from the Manned Space Center. For Rose, it was the 16th time that she has supervised the movement of typewriters, files, Associated Press ticker and Teletype from the bureau offices in Houston's downtown Humble Building. During Apollo 8's pioneering voyage around the moon, she sent copy by Teletype for 20 hours without letup, all through Christmas Eve until noon on Christmas Day. The bureau's Apollo 11 file to Jaroff, Kriss, and Researchers Sydnor Vanderschmidt and Gail Lowman made even that effort seem pale by comparison.

To everyone involved, the experience, like every flight into the unknown of space, was suspenseful, fearful, gut-gripping. "But with this one," says Correspondent Neff, "there was a big difference--a deep, visceral understanding that here was history, and perhaps the act that may ultimately guarantee man's survival. That is a once-in-a-lifetime emotion. And that's what all of us felt."

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