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12 months to go - it will pass quicker than you think!


bootneck

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Twelve months from today will be the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon.  If you are planning to build anything, to commemorate that great event, then now might be a good time to start thinking about what you will need.  These things tend to creep up un-noticed and catch us un-prepared, usually the shops have all sold out of the relevant kits and aftermarket nearer the day.

 

Mike

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On 7/20/2018 at 2:04 PM, spruecutter96 said:

It all happened a few months after I arrived on the planet (by the usual means, not a UFO).

 

Can it really be nearly 50 years ago...?

 

Chris. 

I recall watching it on our B&W TV. Grainy, blurry, and totally captivating. And yes, nearly 50 years ago!

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It won't be that much longer until we see the 50th anniversary of the last lunar landing. When you look at some of the designs for longer-stay missions that never got off the drawing boards - automated descent stages carrying larger roving vehicles, or ascent stages with the engine removed that could act as more roomy living quarters for the astronauts - it's a crying shame that the programme ended after just six landings. Unfortunately the people who were paying for the flights - the US taxpayers - lost interest once Apollo 11 had beaten the Commies and they didn't see any point in carrying on.

 

Many science fiction writers predicted lunar landings, but they nearly all assumed that the next step was a permanent settlement. I don't think any of them foresaw that we would go and then just stop. After Apollo 17, Arthur C Clarke compared the Apollo programme to the early days of polar exploration: these flights were the equivalent of Scott and Amundsen using sleds pulled by dogs. Once the pole had been reached there was a hiatus before exploration resumed, but this time the explorers were using DC3s and Sno-Cat tractors. He expected that more efficient lunar landers would be developed, but he never anticipated it would be more than half a century (and counting) before it happened.

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I remember as a 15 year old staying up all night to watch it. My dad would have, but he had work the next day. The TV pictures were not brilliant, but this was 1969 and they were from the moon. Considering the hardware and software limitations, it was an achievement, but of course driven by the Cold War. 

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My Dad didn't put the tv on for Apollo 11, I was three years old and probably wouldn't have remembered; It would have been nice to know I was there when it was broadcast live on tv. He did remember and prepare for Apollo 12 and I remember waiting to see the broadcast but we know what happened. For Apollo 13 he probably didn't feel it was appropriate to see the unfolding situation.

 

Paul 

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He must have been looking for hours :)

 

I was 12 at the time and was practically glued to the TV and the radio because since there was no daytime TV back then, early morning reports of the progress of the mission were usually obtained by listening to the radio news.

 

The landing actually took place in the evening (UK time) of 20 July and the moonwalk itself was in the early hours of the morning of 21 July (again, UK time). Despite the fact that there was no daytime TV, TV networks put the moonwalk on a loop tape and kept repeating the images of the moonwalk throughout the following morning. At that time in the UK, there were, of course, only two networks, BBC and ITV. I lived in Ireland so we also had coverage from Irish national TV broadcaster, RTE.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

Despite the fact that there was no daytime TV, TV networks put the moonwalk on a loop tape and kept repeating the images of the moonwalk throughout the following morning.

This is correct - that's how I remember seeing it, watching with my jaw just about on the floor while my mum was doing the washing.

 

I also remember where I saw the lift-off: at the home of my grandmother's two widowed sisters. I don't remember why we visited on that particular day but no doubt I was told I could watch the launch there. When we arrived the TV was off - I asked if they could switch it on and my dad explained, "He wants to watch the men going to the Moon." I was never sure whether they understood it was real or not.

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The first Space Shuttle launch was originally scheduled for Friday 10 Aporil 1981. I was working in Co. Longford in Ireland at the time. I wanted to see the launch live on TV so I went to a local pub. I asked the barman if he could turn on the TV. He said "Why, is there horse racing on today?".

 

As we all know, the launch was scrubbed that day anyway and it eventually took off on 12 April 1981 - which was a Sunday. I watched that at home in Dublin.

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  • 2 months later...

I remember my father waking me up and said, "Son, come and see the man landing on the Moon." I can not remember which day of the week it was (Sunday). I was seven years old. Like any child I was fascinated by science fiction stories. Flash Gordon, the old serial with the actor Buster Crabbe, was the maximum I did not miss an episode! Not to mention the Gerry Anderson series, the Thunderbirds. My imagination was boiling. I remember that my father that year, gave me as a gift a "full space suit" that was sold by Atma or Troll or neither. Does not matter. What was important was to imagine that I was in infinite space, coming out of my spaceship, which was the underneath of my mother's sewing machine, and plunged into infinity, even though infinity ended at the yard gate. The difficult thing was to simulate the lack of gravity. The time has passed. Suddenly the televisions stopped transmitting the space launches. Just one note or two and few pictures. The Vietnam War has taken up space. The Cold War sold far more than space travel.

I grew up, and even as an adult, I continued to admire and still admire the men and women who gave their all, with great personal sacrifice in some cases, so that Humanity could achieve that dream. And I'm still passionate about aviation and space programs in any country. I started to have other interests. One of them is museology. In 2009, a friend, editor of a web magazine calls me and asks if I want to travel to the United States to take pictures of UNITAS GOLD. Operation UNITAS is a joint military exercise between the South American Navy and the US Navy and this year would be the 50th year. This was a gift from heaven. I accepted on time. I would cover the exercise from the point of view of the Brazilian submarine Tikuna. It was eleven days on board. The shipment was in Florida and the landing was in Georgia. In the landing region, "near", there are three sensational museums. The first one I visited was the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida. The museum is wonderful. What a collection. During the visit, I look at a group of people and one of them stands out. He's the only one with white hair. The face is familiar to me. When I recognize him, I get scared. It's him! IS THE GUY! I look away from him while he talks to friends and I'm moving away. But then the brain works again! "Wait a minute Leo," I think. "It's Michelangelo, Beethoven, Einstein, Pele and him! If I do not talk to the man now, never again! "I look for him and see that he's still around and I'm going to talk to him, trying not to look too much. I turn to him and his friends, realizing that I have recognized him, kindly step back and then I call him, "Sir ...?" He turns around with curiosity: "Yes?" I then ask the stupidest question in the world . I wonder if he was him. He confirms and we shake hands. I was going to ask for an autograph but I thought I'd better take a picture. There are certain things that money does not buy. A moment like this is one of them. Finding the man who stepped on a celestial body for the first time was the materialization of the dreams of that seven-year-old boy playing astronaut. I saw on television, next to my father, that man enter history.

On August 25, 2012, Neil went to live in the old neighborhood he met during his astronaut career. He lived near the stars now.

Good job Neil!

Edited by Leo Melo
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On 7/21/2018 at 11:33 PM, GordonD said:

After Apollo 17, Arthur C Clarke compared the Apollo programme to the early days of polar exploration: these flights were the equivalent of Scott and Amundsen using sleds pulled by dogs. Once the pole had been reached there was a hiatus before exploration resumed, but this time the explorers were using DC3s and Sno-Cat tractors.

Not forgetting the ill-fated expedition by a Miskatonic University team in 1930. At The Mountains Of Madness

I wish Guillermo del Toro could get the green light for a film of the story.

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On ‎7‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 10:07 PM, paulj said:

My Dad didn't put the tv on for Apollo 11, I was three years old and probably wouldn't have remembered; It would have been nice to know I was there when it was broadcast live on tv. He did remember and prepare for Apollo 12 and I remember waiting to see the broadcast but we know what happened. For Apollo 13 he probably didn't feel it was appropriate to see the unfolding situation.

 

Paul 

I don't understand - Apollo 12 was a successful mission was it not?

 

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Apollo 12 was a very successful mission except for one significant aspect. When setting up the TV camera to cover their moonwalk, Al Bean inadvertently pointed the camera directly at the sun - and burned out the tube. As a result, most of the Apollo 12 moonwalk had no TV coverage. Many people claim that the sudden drop off in public interest in the moon landings was partly caused by this - although I'm not altogether sure about that. But it certainly didn't help.

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It did give some ammunition to the conspiracy nuts who said the landings were faked. "Ah, they didn't even have to fake the footage this time!"

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