Acknowledgments and info about this site

Contact details below.

About this website

This site is an ongoing work by Colin Mackellar as a tribute to the pioneering work of all who were involved with NASA’s Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station.

I was too young to be personally involved in Apollo (if you look at the photo on the opening page, that’s me in the foreground – standing outside the Honeysuckle gate in 1971. I was nearly 15). But I have always been very interested in both astronomy and manned space exploration. (On holidays our family will often just “happen” to find ourselves at places like Honeysuckle, Tidbinbilla, Parkes or Siding Spring.)

During the Apollo Program, both Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla were household names in Australia (as was the Parkes Radio Telescope) and I followed any media references to them closely.

It is surprising that there is not more information readily available about Honeysuckle (other than the tremendous resources of Hamish Lindsay’s book and Mike Dinn and John Saxon’s websites).

For that matter, there is very little on the Internet about Tidbinbilla, Goldstone or Madrid from the Apollo days. This website is the beginning of an attempt to help correct that.

 

Thanks

This “Honeysuckle” website would not have been possible without the kindness and constant encouragement of three well known Honeysuckle identities – Mike Dinn, John Saxon and Hamish Lindsay. They have been extraordinarily helpful in scanning photos, sharing stories, answering questions and so on. (Hamish took most of the photos on this site. If I missed attributing a photograph, it’s a good guess that Hamish took it.)

I am also very grateful to many people who have sent me a great deal of other material.

Mike Dinn and Colin Mackellar at Tidbinbilla, July 2002. DSS-46 (the former Honeysuckle antenna) is in the background.

Invitation to contribute / Appeal for help!

If you are a former Honeysuckle worker, or if you have information, photos, stories, grafitti, maps, etc. that you would like to share, I would be delighted to hear from you. (See ‘Contact’ below.)

I have larger versions of many of the photos that are on the site – feel free to ask.

About me

I was born in Sydney in 1956 and have lived here all my life. My father, Ken Mackellar, introduced me to amateur astronomy and I have continued that, even though living in light-polluted Sydney. During the Gemini and Apollo missions I became closely interested in manned space exploration – and first learned of Honeysuckle in, I guess, 1968.

Me with the 144th scale Revell Saturn V model in 1969.

I studied Geology and Geophysics at the University of Sydney in the 1970s – in the hope that lots of geologists would be needed for interpreting the results of planetary exploration. (Seemed like a good idea at the time! I also rang Honeysuckle in 1976, when the station was supporting Viking 1 – and spoke to several members of the team, who very kindly took the time to explain what was happening.)

After working in exploration Geology (on Earth!) for a while, I turned to study theology at Moore College in Sydney and was ordained into the Christian ministry in 1986. I’m currently privileged to be the Minister at an Anglican church in Western Sydney.

(If you’d like to read one of my sermons with references to Honeysuckle in it, there’s one here – a 100kb PDF.

And at the Apollo 11 35th anniversary lunch in The Canberra Club on July 21 2004, I was very grateful to be given the chance to say a few words – and you can read them here – pdf.)

I’m married to Janelle and we have three children.

Contact

I’d love to hear from you. My contact details are –

Colin Mackellar 9 Ridge Street Merrylands West NSW 2160 Australia Phone (Sydney) 02 9682 7613 (from overseas, +61 2 9682 7613) Phone (Canberra) 02 6100 6224

or write to me at –

Alternatively, you can send me a message via this form.

Corrections

I’d be surprised if there aren’t many mistakes on this site. Please tell me about them so I can get it right.

And if I have used any of your material and haven’t attributed correctly, please tell me so.

Colin Mackellar

(Site launched Sunday, 14 December 2003)

That’s me – at the sign at the beginning of what is now called “Apollo Road”, leading up to Honeysuckle Creek – in October 1971.

I didn’t expect to be let in the front gate – and I wasn’t. There was nobody on the gate that day! (Large 1.5MB version here.)

And just for comparison, here are two photos of me in the same spot

– in 1971 and 2002.

The yellow lines point to the same features.

In the 2002 image, the hill is still there – it’s just hidden behing the trees
(and the elevation of the photographer is slightly different).
The main difference is that the Tracking Station isn’t there any more! :-(

Click image for a larger version.

 

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