50 years ago
- Thread starter Scouter
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skywagon8a
MEMBER
SE Mass MA6
I can still recall struggling to stay awake watching it happen in the middle of the night on a black & white TV.
supercrow
FRIEND
Smith Pond near Millinocket, Me
Me too.
phdigger123
FRIEND
Cottage Grove, Mn
It was an awesome day! I remember playing astronaut with my brother. The old abandoned outhouse on our farm was our space capsule. We must have flown to the moon a hundred times. When Armstrong and Aldrin landed it was really inspiring. The Apollo 11 crew were true national heroes.
cubdriver2
FRIEND
upstate NY
I was at BSA Camp Altaha at the base of the Appalachian trail in NWNJ. Over 150 of us watching in the mess hall on a rabbit eared 13" black and white TV. With all the inovations that have happened since that day I still believe that July 20th 1969 will stand as one of the greatest accomplishments ever
Glenn
Glenn
TulBiplane
Registered User
Plano, TX
I was at my Aunt’s house. I thought she owned a lousy TV, with a grainy, black and white picture. I wanted to go home and see it on a good TV.
Today, I reflect on the leaps in technology required to put two men on the surface AND broadcast a video feed to those of us that were 250,000 miles away.
Today, I reflect on the leaps in technology required to put two men on the surface AND broadcast a video feed to those of us that were 250,000 miles away.
RVBottomly
PATRON
Asotin County Washington (KLWS)
We were visiting my cousins in Great Falls MT. They had a big BW TV. The image was upside down--the local station said their feed was shaky and they weren't going to mess with at that moment.
My grandmother's sister was there too. She was 16 when the Wright brothers' flight made the headlines. She just kept shaking her head in disbelief. The main thing that bothered her was that Neil Armstrong was upside down on the ladder.
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My grandmother's sister was there too. She was 16 when the Wright brothers' flight made the headlines. She just kept shaking her head in disbelief. The main thing that bothered her was that Neil Armstrong was upside down on the ladder.
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Bearhawk Builder
FRIEND
In the woods
I was only 4 years old at the time. I can’t remember anything so young but I remember that. That event shaped the way I looked at the world and what is possible like it did for so many. Mathematics, engineering, building stuff all started there for me. Funny some don’t get it and still think it was a waste of time and money that should have been spent on other issues of the time, blows my mind.
Farmboy
MEMBER
Middlebury, VT
I’ll have to ask my parents. I would have been just shy of 4, and likely oblivious as I don’t know what we had for TV at that point.
All I remember is my sister and I made a couple of those art-into-dinner-plate deals, and mine was the rocket and capsule going to the moon.
But like Dave said, it’s amazing the amount of small minded and short sighted people in the world. And yet, somehow, a room full of engineers and a dream put men on the moon.
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All I remember is my sister and I made a couple of those art-into-dinner-plate deals, and mine was the rocket and capsule going to the moon.
But like Dave said, it’s amazing the amount of small minded and short sighted people in the world. And yet, somehow, a room full of engineers and a dream put men on the moon.
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Willie
MEMBER
Kerrville, Texas
Buzz still had it as he grew older. He was never prosecuted for punching this idiot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_YM9cCtwz4
I was an eighth grader with my family on our first big cross country trip to Colorado and California. We stopped at a KOA kampground that had been set up in a Kansas field. That night every single person on the property was crammed into the laundry building watching the landing on a 19 inch B&W tv.
Neil had been told to simply chop the thrust when the sensor whips touched the surface, allowing the module to drop aways and compress the suspension. He couldn't bring himself to do it and that's why there was such a drop off the last step of the ladder. And he burned more fuel, and caused "a bunch of us about to turn blue"! He was still a pilot, not "spam in a can."
Neil had been told to simply chop the thrust when the sensor whips touched the surface, allowing the module to drop aways and compress the suspension. He couldn't bring himself to do it and that's why there was such a drop off the last step of the ladder. And he burned more fuel, and caused "a bunch of us about to turn blue"! He was still a pilot, not "spam in a can."
hotrod180
FRIEND
Port Townsend, WA
Attachments
cubdriver2
FRIEND
upstate NY
Just so you know, that cheap dollar store tinfoil doesn't work as good as the Alcoa Renolds wrap foil. ;-)
Glenn
RVBottomly
PATRON
Asotin County Washington (KLWS)
And neither works very well unless you run ground wires to both feet to maintain a balanced polarity. It's probably a good idea to wrap foil on your feet inside your socks, too. People always forget about ground waves.
Farmboy
MEMBER
Middlebury, VT
Cub junkie
Registered User
My Moms basement
Done with slide rules and ingenuity. The computer power they used is probably less than the phones in our pockets. The human mind is still the best computer and this accomplishment proved it. I will never not be in awe of this day.
NunavutPA-12
FRIEND
67.8N,115.1W CYCO Canada
I was born just a few months after Yeager broke the sound barrier in '47. A decade later my grandfather and I watched from the backyard with binoculars as Sputnik passed overhead in the night sky. Twelve years later the U.S. landed men on the moon. The speed of aerospace development was astounding!
courierguy
MEMBER
Inkom, Idaho
Don't know about 50 years ago, but this July 6 th. I watched the movie Apollo 11, on an IMAX screen with Dolby surround sound. 2 hrs earlier I had made 2 different high altitude remote area off airport landings, dodging a few rocks on short final.. So I probably related to the last few seconds of the descent different then most in the theater. See the movie at IMAX, go out of your way to do so.
By "don't know", I mean I don't remember hearing about it as it happened, I was living up a canyon on the Big Sur coastline, with no internet or cell phone, or regular phone or mail. Unlike many here it seems, I for sure was old enough I just wasn't paying attention.
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I remember my dad made us come in and watch it (I was 9 at the time) from outside. Didn't want to but glad I did.
My dad was crying through the presentation and I couldn't get why. He was born early in the 20th century (1916) in rural MT, didn't see a car until quite a bit older, didn't see an airplane until he was a young man, sailed around the world as a ships engineer, then eventually flew in an airplane for the 1st time just before WWII; was discharged in AK, bought a 170, then 180.....He eventually explained to me that seeing the span in his lifetime from horseback transportation to space travel just struck him as almost inconceivable.
My dad was crying through the presentation and I couldn't get why. He was born early in the 20th century (1916) in rural MT, didn't see a car until quite a bit older, didn't see an airplane until he was a young man, sailed around the world as a ships engineer, then eventually flew in an airplane for the 1st time just before WWII; was discharged in AK, bought a 170, then 180.....He eventually explained to me that seeing the span in his lifetime from horseback transportation to space travel just struck him as almost inconceivable.
hotrod180
FRIEND
Port Townsend, WA
Unfortunately I was pretty oblivious to things as kid.
I was 12 when the moon landing was made but I don't recall a thing about it.
I don't also recall much about the cold war nuclear scare (bomb shelters, etc).
I wish I'd been more aware of "the big picture" as a youngster & as a younger man--
I didn't pay a lot of attention to the Iranian hostage crisis in 79,
or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan around the same time.
Ditto many other events that turned out to have long-term influence on world events.
Mark_Moyle
SPONSOR
Platinum
Man! The Apollo missions fascinated me...still have my NASA folder on the Viking missions to Mars. Watched my favorite starship enterprise roll past my grandma’s mobile home n Lancaster. Now once I figure out that sub atomic particle ...gravitons.....I’m go’n places!
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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Scouter
SPONSOR
Exeter Maine
In one of Gene Kranz excellent books he wrote the exercise of launching from FL and using both the earth orbit and moon orbit to propel them was akin to having someone throw a basketball over the barn on the family farm and then hitting the basketball with a marble thrown from the other side. He also said that Apollo 13 splashdown was calculated so closely that the Navy ship Iwo Jima was less than 6K away, and at the time there was initial concern the ship was in the way. As been said done with a slide rule
jim
jim
texmex
MEMBER
Hanging Rock, Australia.
I reckon you could safely say international, world heroes.
I did see the iMax Apollo 11 movies recently and like everything to do with this era, it was fantastic.
I was born a month after the landing, something which my wife a few years older ribs me about. And yes my baby photos are in colour.
When my son was the most difficult (REALLY difficult) to raise at the 15 years of age mark, this whole space race, man walking on the moon was the one thing that held his attention. He read dozens of books on it. He went on to eventually complete an Aeronautical Engineering Degree specalizing in orbit, re-entry mathematics, and this week went solo in a PC21.
So the moon landing is still inspiring, and they are still heroes for people born long after the event.
hotrod180
FRIEND
Port Townsend, WA
Pilatus PC21....I assume he's RAAF?
King Brown
Registered User
Nova Scotia
50 years
Enough of you young guys. Here's an old geezer story. I covered the space program for CBC Television News from Mercury through most of Apollo, the first group fighter pilot jocks, the latter mostly boring electrical engineers except for Aldrin. Bob Gilruth, head NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, recruited 25 engineers who built our scrapped Arrow fighter. Owen Maynard of Sarnia, Ontario, became command module chief and Jim Chamberlain, Kamloops, British Columbia, chief lunar lander. Gilruth had a two-foot Arrow model on his desk, said it was "the best fighter ever built." (US wouldn't buy it.) Owen told me his brains didn't get him the job. Tasked with investigating rocket failures, he apportioned blame discreetly among manufacturers. We were having dinner at his home when the Cape called to say Grissom, Chaffee and White were killed in command module fire on the gantry. For an idea how old I was, I asked Glenn what was a 43-year-old Marine pilot doing in space. He said it's nothing to do with derring-do but doing the right thing the first time.
Enough of you young guys. Here's an old geezer story. I covered the space program for CBC Television News from Mercury through most of Apollo, the first group fighter pilot jocks, the latter mostly boring electrical engineers except for Aldrin. Bob Gilruth, head NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, recruited 25 engineers who built our scrapped Arrow fighter. Owen Maynard of Sarnia, Ontario, became command module chief and Jim Chamberlain, Kamloops, British Columbia, chief lunar lander. Gilruth had a two-foot Arrow model on his desk, said it was "the best fighter ever built." (US wouldn't buy it.) Owen told me his brains didn't get him the job. Tasked with investigating rocket failures, he apportioned blame discreetly among manufacturers. We were having dinner at his home when the Cape called to say Grissom, Chaffee and White were killed in command module fire on the gantry. For an idea how old I was, I asked Glenn what was a 43-year-old Marine pilot doing in space. He said it's nothing to do with derring-do but doing the right thing the first time.
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