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moon landing 47 years ago


RichO

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I was eight, and I watched the whole thing, long after the rest of my family had gone to bed. Amazing times! Even at that age, I realised that I was watching history.

Regards,

Jason

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I remember it vividly. I sat with my Dad watching the grainy images. It felt good knowing that I was watching history being made. I often wonder what it would be like now watching it live via the latest HD digital cameras. Where have the last 47 years gone!!!

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I was eight, and I watched the whole thing, long after the rest of my family had gone to bed. Amazing times! Even at that age, I realised that I was watching history.

Regards,

Jason

And then I went outside and looked up at the moon. I wasn't the only one who said to herself "from now on we live in a world where men have walked on the moon."

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It wasn't 'yesterday' in the UK - but today - 21 July 1969 - at 03:56am IIRC.

I was an idealistic 22 year old watching the grainy B&W images on my landladies small telly in the early hourse of the morning.

How we all thought that this historic moment - watched by millions around the globe - would bring peace, unity and joy to a troubled world - how naive we were.

The difference in dates (20 July @ 10:56 in the US and 21 July @ 03:56 in the UK) makes for some interesting arguments in pub quiz's !!

Ken (now a grumpy old cynic)

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It wasn't 'yesterday' in the UK - but today - 21 July 1969 - at 03:56am IIRC.

The difference in dates (20 July @ 10:56 in the US and 21 July @ 03:56 in the UK) makes for some interesting arguments in pub quiz's !!

Not to be chauvinistic, but as Apollo 11 was a (U.S.) NASA effort, launched from Florida (in the U.S.) and controlled from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas (also in the U.S.), and Armstrong and Aldrin were both U.S. citizens, the official times of the lunar landing and Armstrong's first steps should ALWAYS be recorded as U.S. times. As a native Texan I prefer Houston (Central) time, but Florida (Eastern) time is all right too. :winkgrin:

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Thank You for jogging some very happy memories. Got out of bed to see it at my Grandparents still remember the bright moon, but not full, lighting the way. Grandfather believed it was faked until his dying day...

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I don't remember clearly apart from watching a programme about it at school, where one of the b&w tv's was wheeled in on its stand, and the wooden doors were opened. I have been an Apollo fan ever since though. First kit I built was the (terrible) Revell 1/96 LM and CSM... and my oldest surviving model of any sort is the Revell 1/48 LM which I built in 1978!

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I was on a deployment in the Mediterranean and, at that time, was ashore in Malta and was able to see it on an old TV in a bar in Ghein Tuffeia (Golden Bay). We toasted the event with a few beers.

Mike

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Yes....This is my earliest or second earliest memory (The other was being really irritated on xmas eve because I wanted to wait up for santa and all the adults were clearly in collusion against me.....But I digress. :winkgrin: ). I recall the grainy black & white images on our Ferguson TV, sitting on my dad's lap. :wub:

I also remember him making a point of me seeing it, it was important to him and I was aware of that....I was just under a year old. B)

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Technically yes, I saw it (or so me Mam tells me). I was 2 1/2, so... yeah. I have always had a terrible memory and don't recall much of what has happened to me or in the world at large as a rule. Maybe I'm a figment of someone's imagination? ;)

Or maybe none of us actually saw what we thought we saw...

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Not to be chauvinistic, but as Apollo 11 was a (U.S.) NASA effort, launched from Florida (in the U.S.) and controlled from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas (also in the U.S.), and Armstrong and Aldrin were both U.S. citizens, the official times of the lunar landing and Armstrong's first steps should ALWAYS be recorded as U.S. times. As a native Texan I prefer Houston (Central) time, but Florida (Eastern) time is all right too. :winkgrin:

Strictly speaking, aviation events and records in aviation and space are usually recorded in GMT - now usually referred to as Co-ordinated Universal Time ( it's a French expression) . Therefore using "British" time is fine - although being July, Britain would have moved to British Summer Time by July rather than GMT.

In reality, the actual "landing" was indeed on July 20th - even in Britain - as the lunar module touched down around 9.00 pm BST. The moon walk happened in the early hours of the morning of July 21 in the UK. Therefore. most Brits stayed up into the early hours so they could watch Armstrong make his famous "one giant leap".

So, on a British forum where most of the posters are British, I don't think it's too far fetched for the memories of Britons who remember this event to use the times they associate with the mission.

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I vaguely remember this. Headmaster of my primary school used to get out a TV To show us Apollo launches and the moonwalk.

Very grainy picture, very unclear. I thought it was live - but it can't have been. Very exciting re-run though, in the days before VCRs!

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Plasticsurgeons - what years are you talking about? The moon landings were carried out between July 1969 and December 1972. The vast bulk of people had no means of recording TV back then as domestic VCRs were only being developed by the manufacturers at that time. VHS and Betamax recorders didn't go on general sale until the mid to late 1970s, a few years after the Apollo programme had ended.

The lunar surface TV images from Apollo 11 were the worst of the Apollo TV broadcasts. This was because they only had a fairly basic black and white TV camera and they did not carry the erectable umbrella like TV antenna with them on that first landing. Instead, they used the much smaller high gain antenna mounted on the lunar module, which was not optomised for TV.

The TV images for Apollo 12 should have been better because they brought with them a new, specially developed, lightweight and small colour TV camera. They DID have the TV dish as well. Unfortunately, Al Bean managed to point the camera directly at the sun, burning out its tube - so the TV broadcast from Apollo 12 was rather short.

From Apollo 14 on, the TV standard got better and better. By the time of Apollo 17, the images were pretty good.

I can't wait for humans to go back to the moon. I am sure with modern digital TV imaging systems, the pictures from the surface will be absolutely stunning.

Edited by Eric Mc
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I was on an ATC camp at Scampton that week. We were actually billeted at Hemswell and watched the event in the NAAFI room. On Monday the 20th I was the first in the air,from Scampton, for the week in Chipmunk WK577/V. Then, at Hemswell on the evening of the 23rd some of us got some gliding in. I went up in Kirby Cadet T.31 WT895.

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I don't remember clearly apart from watching a programme about it at school, where one of the b&w tv's was wheeled in on its stand, and the wooden doors were opened. I have been an Apollo fan ever since though. First kit I built was the (terrible) Revell 1/96 LM and CSM... and my oldest surviving model of any sort is the Revell 1/48 LM which I built in 1978!

my thoughts and memorys as well, school tv,sat around watching......cheers

..

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I am curious as to what you were all watching at school. Unless you were in school at 3.00 am in the morning of July 21 1969, you certainly weren't watching the event live.

Back in 1969 there was no daytime TV - apart from BBC and ITV's TV for Schools and Colleges. I think during the hours after the moonwalk had finished, both BBC and ITV put their recordings of the event onto a video loop and kept repeating it more or less until normal TV began around 5.00 pm.

Perhaps that is what you are all remembering.

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