11:30 A.M.
The black and silver pair he wore every day were , by happy coincidence , a synthesis of the cowboy and military footgear styling he had observed hour after weary hour on the pick-up panel in the control room . He placed the helmet carefully on his head , took time to make sure that it did not hide too great a portion of his impressively high forehead , and then walked leisurely to the control room . In the control room he checked the relative position of two green lights on the navigation panel , shut off the main drives , clicked the viewscreen up to maximum magnification and took over the manual controls . A little less than two hours later , at 11:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time , he landed smoothly and quietly near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington , D.C. Watching from a port in the airlock , Keeter was impressed with the restraint of the reception committee . Obviously , the entire city had been alerted several hours before his arrival . Now , only orderly files of military equipment could be seen on the city 's streets , converging cautiously toward the gleaming white hull and its lone occupant . He opened the airlock and stepped out on a small platform which held him a full hundred feet above the grass covered park .