♪ ♪ 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 joanne 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 communicator. we're going to have you on the console. later i found out he had to go and convince the center director, dr. kurt beebus, that it was going to be okay. >> do you think it had to go all the way to the top for the men that were in the firing room? >> oh, heck no. >> >> growing up she had a love for science and learning. >> she was an insatiable reader. she skipped the first grade. she would not want a doll for christmas. 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 u.s. army ballistic missile

agency. and went on to become the first female engineer at cape canaveral. >> so what was it like when you first started at nasa? >> it was pretty intense. it was all men. some of the buildings didn't have ladies' restrooms. >> just like the women in the movie hidden figures, joanne had to go to a different building or use the men's room. >> sometimes 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 like that? >> they tried not to notice. and i didn't really care. 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 said, yeah. he said the look on your face. has there been a death in the family? i said no. an obscene phone call. but i never let myself feel like an object. i was not going to be an object. i just had too much fearlessness in me to let that be any kind of deterrent. >> roy tharp sat next to her in the firing room. >> we're all men and joanne was there and you know, 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? >> there were some men. and we would counsel our guys. but there was no doubt about it.

she had the moxie of what it took to be in a 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, oh, it's never going to get off the ground. it just creeps and creeps. there is a little moment of horror. will this thing go? then once it's gone, okay, come on, engine. you can 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 was a school teacher and he wanted to go on a fishing trip to the gulf of mexico. that evening, we had a great dinner and a bottle of champagne and we went back to watching on tv with everybody else. >> the eveniagle has landed. >> copy. you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. we're breathing again. >> we were sitting there watching. it was so dramatic. >> that's one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind. >> and my husband looked at me. 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 politics and the way she did things, she had greatness. >> do you think that you would be where you are today without someone like joanne morgan? >> no, i don't. she was a champion for me. she was a huge inspiration to say that you cannot 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 taibbi little child, seeing my dad go off to war and my dad turning around and saying, little jo, you're in charge. saluted and off he went. and my grandmother said, i saw you get your bossy on.

>> did you get your bossy on at nasa? >> yes, did i. i had to get my bossy on sometimes. i always played piano. for many years, i thought i was going to be a piano teacher. my track changed after my dad moved to us florida and i saw the rocket launches. that was the hook. i thought this is going to change the world i live in. i'm getting in on it. >> you're retired now in montana. but there was a point where you actually 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. about time. >> so when you come outside and you look at the moon here, what

do you think? >> i got to help put 12 people to walk on that moon. i'm telling everybody about it, too.

tonight at 10:56 eastern, we're going to mark the exact anniversary, 50 years ago to the minute since kneel armstrong took one giant leap for man kind. you're about to watch the cnn film apollo 11. it is a unique behind-the-scenes look at neil and buzz in the moments that made them into american heroes. this film is 100% archival. it mean every frame of footage you'll see was shot during the apollo missions. it is a