Was it Really Forty Years Ago?

[LawrenceU]

I guess it was. I remember so much about Apollo 11. I was young, but absorbed by the Apollo program. My father and I watched and read everything about the missions we could get our hands on. My grandfather was a Gulf Oil distributor and dealer so I got lots of cool NASA / Apollo stuff, some of which I still have.

Here is a site that I'm looking forward to keeping an eye on. It has 'real time' data from the Apollo 11 mission.

We Choose the Moon: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing

 

[jwithnell]

I know what you mean -- I look forward to watching things tomorrow. My folks were great about making sure we watched broadcasts regarding the space program and the moon walk is something I remember clearly. (I was about 7).

 

[BobVigneault]

In 1969 I belonged to the Space and Astronomy club and never missed a moment of the space program. The astronauts were my childhood heroes.

I don't know Lawrence. I lived through it, I watched it but I don't understand how it could have happened. My iPod has more computing power than they were carrying on that tin can in 1969 and they navigated to the moon and BACK????

It doesn't make sense. We should be to Mars by now but instead we can't launch a rocket if it's RAINING!!! Something just doesn't add up.

Kennedy said we would go to the moon in 10 years and we did... supposedly. What's happened to us; in forty years since we haven't gone anywhere and we have to hold our breaths for fear our rockets will blow up when we DO launch them.

Smoke and mirrors, there, I said it.

 

[LawrenceU]

Nah, we did it. We have just lost focus as a nation. Shoot. Our school systems no longer teach anything worth knowing. They just want to make sure that we all feel good. We don't focus on hard sciences any longer. Mathematics are seen as something you just have to suffer through. We have become a nation adrift. As to computing: miniaturization and power is not all that matters. What matters are the men who use the information and have the innate smarts to apply the data. Give me a man from the old days with slide rule over folks with their computer/calculators today. (I think I may just dust off mine this week in honour of Werner Von Braun!)

 

[Ivan]

Smoke and mirrors, there, I said it.

As in a Hollywood studio?

 

[Curt]

Smoke or otherwise, it still makes one feel just a little old.

 

[Rich Koster]

I got a cardboard cut out lunar module kit from Gulf. I was young and my cousin Pete helped assemble it.

 

[KMK]

Uh guys, didn't you ever see "Capricorn One"?


Seriously, watching takeoff is one of my earliest memories.

 

[Sven]

Did we really land on the moon?

[video=youtube;Y5MVVtFYTSo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5MVVtFYTSo[/video]

 

[LawrenceU]

I got a cardboard cut out lunar module kit from Gulf. I was young and my cousin Pete helped assemble it.

I still have mine. And, I have a couple is sheets that were never assembled. I will admit that I was a rocket nerd. I was a NASA nut, I still am to some extent. Growing up I made rockets, launched rockets (both solid and liquid propelled), and in general was consumed by it and related things. My Uncle George was a White Sands working on missle systems for years.

Imagine my surprise when we moved to Kansas and learned that one of our neighbors was the brother of Neil Armstrong! Suddenly I was a kid again.

 

[Sven]

The flag for the Lunar landing was designed by my mom's second cousin. That's my claim to fame.

 

[jwithnell]

Does anyone know how to bring up the actual space site? If I click anywhere on it, all I get is an ad for Adobe -- I'm pretty sure we have the player on our system already.

 

[LawrenceU]

Which site are you trying to load?

 

[jaybird0827]

I was in my 3rd week of Basic Training at Ft. Dix NJ at the time of this historic event. We subsequently got our first weekend passes when the company commander, in the course of celebration, made an exception to policy.

 

[LawrenceU]

Did we really land on the moon?

YouTube - Documentary - Moon Landing Hoax - Conspiracy Theory - Did We Land On The Moon (Fox TV) [43.49]-- part (1)

Since I don't have time to address all the wacky stuff in the Fox show I'll post this page. Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy: Bad TV

 

[ExGentibus]

In the 10th century the Vikings reached North America, with no compass (and no Spam ). In the 15th century Columbus reached Central America, with no GPS.
People do accomplish amazing things when motivated.

 

[jwithnell]

Got it -- We Choose the Moon -- our security stuff was interfering ...

 

[Skyler]

We'd have been to Mars by now except that one of the advance probes discovered a piece of alien technology that the government is bent on getting its hands on. All Mars missions are delayed and/or outright canceled to prevent it from being recovered until they get their mission out and recover it without attracting attention from anyone else.

Or so I heard, from a very reliable source.

As for the moon, well, you know the story. Giant transforming robots scared the astronauts off and we haven't been back since because we haven't the resources to properly deal with them.

 

[Rich Koster]

I got a cardboard cut out lunar module kit from Gulf. I was young and my cousin Pete helped assemble it.

I still have mine. And, I have a couple is sheets that were never assembled. I will admit that I was a rocket nerd. I was a NASA nut, I still am to some extent. Growing up I made rockets, launched rockets (both solid and liquid propelled), and in general was consumed by it and related things. My Uncle George was a White Sands working on missle systems for years.

Imagine my surprise when we moved to Kansas and learned that one of our neighbors was the brother of Neil Armstrong! Suddenly I was a kid again.

My parents would not let me get a chemistry set, rockets or a science lab. I guess the experiments I made with canned objects in the campfire helped them make that decision. I did get a job working for the RCA Missle & Suface Radar Division later in life. That was just boring electronics though.

 

[VictorBravo]

Does anybody remember the feed coming from NASA being shown on NBC? At first it was upside down. Nobody wanted to fix it for fear of losing the connection. And Neil Armstrong took forever to climb down those steps.

And before that, remember the reports back as it was landing. Counting down the feet--moving too fast! And then silence, a pause, a held breath--"Houston, Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed."

I wanted to cry but I held it back.

I was watching in my uncle and aunt's house in Great Falls MT, home of Malmstrom AFB. The entire city was still.

And I had a great aunt in her 90s who was just shaking her head, saying, "that's not real." She was suffering culture shock because she actually remembered reading about the first airplane flight in the paper.

 

[jambo]

I always felt I was cheated out the great moment. We avidly followed the space programme and like lots of wee boys we all dreamed of being either secret agents or astronauts. We watched all the Apollo blast offs and splash downs then when the Apollo 11 mission took off for the Moon we were on holiday in a place that had no TV. I was so disappointed to miss the great event having watched everything thus far only to miss out on the climax of it all. Apollo 12 just wasn't the same.

 

[Jennie]

Everyone in the neighborhood sat up late to watch it; I remember looking out the window and seeing all the lights on.

Next month, do we get to re-celebrate Woodstock?

 

[Jesus is my friend]

In all humility I ask this question as I hear all these folks and everyone else in America for that matter talk so sweetly of NASA and the space program etc. and I wonder,why did we go to the moon,mars,space stations,shuttles etc?Yes "....it's a giant leap for mankind" but, is it glorifying God? could we have spent 1.7 Trillion dollars to create methods of growing food/drinking water for starving people or whatever.If my house (planet) is not in order why should attempt to build a new house (planet)in other words are our priorities misaligned?,Please correct me on this as there are many folks here much wiser than me and you folks are fellow Christians so You can see with Biblical discernment

Looking for answers
Brian

 

[Edward]

In all humility I ask this question as I hear all these folks and everyone else in America for that matter talk so sweetly of NASA and the space program etc. and I wonder,why did we go to the moon,mars,space stations,shuttles etc?Yes "....it's a giant leap for mankind" but, is it glorifying God? could we have spent 1.7 Trillion dollars to create methods of growing food/drinking water for starving people or whatever.If my house (planet) is not in order why should attempt to build a new house (planet)in other words are our priorities misaligned?,Please correct me on this as there are many folks here much wiser than me and you folks are fellow Christians so You can see with Biblical discernment

Looking for answers
Brian

I don't know your age, but I suspect by your question that you might be a bit younger than me.

Did the space race glorify God? Yes, on one level, it did. It was one campaign in a battle between a west that was still more than nominally Christian, and Godless Communism, murderers of millions. And while Apollo was just one step in the right direction, it was Reagan's Star Wars plan that broke the back of the Soviet Union.

What good is clean water if the message of the Gospel can't be heard?

 

[Jesus is my friend]

In all humility I ask this question as I hear all these folks and everyone else in America for that matter talk so sweetly of NASA and the space program etc. and I wonder,why did we go to the moon,mars,space stations,shuttles etc?Yes "....it's a giant leap for mankind" but, is it glorifying God? could we have spent 1.7 Trillion dollars to create methods of growing food/drinking water for starving people or whatever.If my house (planet) is not in order why should attempt to build a new house (planet)in other words are our priorities misaligned?,Please correct me on this as there are many folks here much wiser than me and you folks are fellow Christians so You can see with Biblical discernment

Looking for answers
Brian

I don't know your age, but I suspect by your question that you might be a bit younger than me.

Did the space race glorify God? Yes, on one level, it did. It was one campaign in a battle between a west that was still more than nominally Christian, and Godless Communism, murderers of millions. And while Apollo was just one step in the right direction, it was Reagan's Star Wars plan that broke the back of the Soviet Union.

What good is clean water if the message of the Gospel can't be heard?

Thank you very much for helping me understand this! and well articulated also,thanks again brother!

 

[Wayne]

Brian:

Just Google a search on spinoffs from space research. One site has the following [NASA spinoffs, space benefits, space history, NASA space spinoffs, NASA technology products]:

Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! That's less than 1 penny for every dollar spent. The average American spends more of their budget on their cable bill, eating out or entertainment than this yet the benefits of space flight are remarkable. It has been conservatively estimated by U.S. space experts that for every dollar the U.S. spends on R and D in the space program, it receives $7 back in the form of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and economic growth. Besides the obvious jobs created in the aerospace industry, thousands more are created by many other companies applying NASA technology in nonspace related areas that affect us daily. One cannot even begin to place a dollar value on the lives saved and improved lifestyles of the less fortunate. Space technology benefits everyone and a rising technological tide does raise all boats.

One small example is the Hubble Space Telescope. Much maligned at first because of its flawed optics, it still produced better photographs than anything here on Earth. Once fixed, it has produced even more startling scientific data which we have only begun to understand and apply. One of the many spinoffs from the Hubble telescope is the use of its Charge Coupled Device (CCD) chips for digital imaging breast biopsies. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently than other existing technologies. The CCD chips are so advanced that they can detect the minute differences between a malignant or benign tumor without the need for a surgical biopsy. This saves the patient weeks of recovery time and the cost for this procedure is hundreds of dollars vs. thousands for a surgical biopsy. With over 500,000 women needing biopsies a year the economic benefit, per year, is tremendous and it greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies.

A long list of those spinoffs follows on that web page. Amazing stuff, much of which we might not have apart from space-oriented research.

 

[LawrenceU]

And, if you want to get literal: Much of the modern water cleaning technology comes directly from the Apollo program. The small efficient water purification systems used in many areas of the world today come directly from technologies developed in the NASA program.

 

[Herald]

40 years ago I was eight and over a family friends house in Rutherford, NJ. We watched the event on television. I was mesmerized by the space program. I had a G.I. Joe Mercury Space Capsule and loved anything and everything to do with outer space.

 

[Theogenes]

I was two weeks shy of my 11th birthday and remember watching the events unfold. That was a glorious summer. Hey Bill, I had one of those G.I. Joe space capsules as well! WOW! What memories!