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Today in (and back from) space...


GordonD

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Forty-eight years ago today the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to fulfil the commitment that President Kennedy had made in 1961, of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" before the end of the decade.

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On 25/07/2017 at 7:59 AM, Eric Mc said:

I'm always mindful of the Apollo 11 "dates".  I expect the media will notice these again in 2019.

 

They probably will. Unfortunately Neil Armstrong is no longer with us, but hopefully Buzz and Mike will still be around to mark the anniversary.

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  • 2 weeks later...
18 hours ago, Anthony Kesterton said:

There is a new exhibition planned at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum for 2019 - including Neil Armstrong's original space suit (recently scanned and preserved thanks to a Kickstarter campaign).

I remember reading an SF story (though I have no idea who wrote it) about an alien species which collects space artifacts and puts them on display in their museum. Among the exhibits are the backpacks and other stuff that Armstrong and Aldrin left behind at Tranquillity Base. The story is told in a series of memos between various departments of the alien government. As the story progresses it becomes clear that Mankind is preparing to return to the Moon and due to a Star Trek-style Prime Directive there must be no evidence that the aliens have been there, so the order goes out to create exact duplicates of the backpacks to leave on the Moon in place of the originals. However the story ends with one memo saying that Mankind has revisited Tranquillity Base and all hell has broken out. It seems that there's been a breakdown in communication and the group which created the duplicates didn't realise that although Apollo 11 had a crew of three, only two of them went down to the lunar surface...

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