On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched for its trip to the moon. There is a website launched We Choose the Moon: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing that will track in real time each phase of that mission. The site is up now with the countdown clock ticking away. You can sign up for email alerts for each significant stage of the flight. Could be a nice nostalga trip for those of us that can remember it...
I remember. I remember every launch, from Mercury through Apollo. I remember the long holds on the pad as problems were worked out in real time. I remember Apollo 13 and wondering if we would get them down safe. I remember the first step on the moon, and the words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" (later, Neal said he said "for a man" but the way it's remembered is probably better anyway). We MUST return to manned planetary exploration. If not the US, than someone else should take up the challenge. It would be a shame to think all that effort was for nothing, and we will never again visit other worlds. Thanks for the post. I'll check out the site!
Like most of the events of the sixties, the significance was lost on me at the time. No, silly, because I was just a little kid, slowly waking to the wonders of the world. Man on the moon was cool, but I had no idea how cool until I'd gained a wider perspective.
It's entirely possible the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars pissed .... ur um I mean spent ... on space and weapons research might eventually provide us with a useful innovation that will cost <$5,000 and make our lives so much better Like robot women and robot sheep
as a reward or whatever for being attached to the marines in vietnam as a navy corpsman i was given the plum assignement for my last year in the nav by being stationed at daytona beach florida in the yacht basin on independent duty! any how i rember seeing the space ship pass overhead. wow it was cool.!!
My Dad worked at NASA until the early 70's. I ended up with a few odds and ends of collectibles. Quite a few government issued photos, some autographs, matches, patches, etc. Here's a photo of the lunar lander that day. (The blue type is what is printed on the back of the glossy photograph) This is kinda cool from a later moon landing, Apollo 14. Sorry for the bad quality.
If you're interested here's a link to a site where they discuss the safety line. Scroll down to the 5th post. Apollo 14 flown safety line presentation - collectSPACE: Messages
40 years ago, WOW, time flies. Yet I can still remember the landing of the first Man on the Moon like it was yesterday. I was in High School at the time, and we were all allowed to watch it on TV sets set up for the event. (We never watched TV in school, so this was special) Of course we didn't think about how much it cost to put Man on the Moon, or even to send a rocket into space. It was just an amazing occurence. We were not aware then of what damage we were doing to our planet, we were untouchable 40 years ago. Everything was possible and nothing was going to get in our way of doing what we wanted, when we wanted, and how we wanted, and buggar the cost, monetry or otherwise. It was an inspiring time, and we went through many changes, in every aspect of our lives. If Man could land on the Moon, then anything was possible. :rockon:
That was my first reaction too, I was already out of high school for a couple years. When they landed on the moon, my nephew and I were sitting in a fishing boat in northern MN listening to it on the radio while trying to catch some fish (in reality just drowning worms). Some time later I was in Washington DC and went through the air and space museum, they have the Apollo capsule there, looks so primative by today's standards.
To own evan a small piece of something that flew on a mission is a very special thing to have. To own even a small piece of something that has actually been on another planet/moon is an incredibly rare and wonderful thing. Even having a photographic print from an actual NASA negative is rare (they're usually offset-print reproductions). Treasure your little collection - what your dad did for our space program may have been just one piece of the puzzle, but every piece was an important one. I am so jealous of those that were able to work the manned programs - I have spent most of my life in the aerospace community, but came into it just after the end of manned exploration. I'd love to finish my career working the Mars mission - I keep an eye out on the job boards for that possibility.
I don't know.. it was stirring and all---I watched it but...in total hindsight with some age and wisdom added I feel like a little logic needs to be applied. The whole thing started as a race against the Russians... National *&^%& envy....on a grand scale.... the moon landing project was never followed up on...skunked into the space shuttle, the ISS, which does not have a working toilet again and now with orion project we're back to the apollo program---Nasa, founded by an ex-Nazi V2 designer has produced only, as aptly put in a previous posting, Tang and velcro (i think velcro but I'm not sure) as the major culture-wide, ultimate break through advancement from manned space travel. Satellite tech OK i can see results, cell phones and GPS, earth photography, and agricultural scientific results for the everyman. Robots to mars and the outer planets on a limited basis a little less sure of so I'm a maybe on that.... Nasa and the manned space program, in my opinion is about as useful to me as the Swiss Air Force and alot more expensive. Just my thoughts Froley
