40 years after...

Loads of stories flying around the net today about the 40th anniversary of the day the first astronauts touched the silvery dust of the Moon. Here's one in the Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1148812.html?asset_id=1148714&asset_type=gallery

There's gotta be others that are more revealing, especially those that offer hints about future plans for moon bases and mars missions, if anyone comes across them...here's the place to talk them over...

Jackie was a little peeved with me yesterday because I couldn't recall watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. She had just seen something about it on TV so I said, "Did they mention that Armstrong is from Wapakoneta?"
"Nobody cares that he's from Wapakoneta."
"I care. The people in Wapakoneta care."
"Why couldn't he have come from an Ohio town with a nice name?"
"You mean like Ashtabula or Piqua, Gallipolis or Knockemstiff?"
"Not Piqua. Even the people who live there can't decide how to pronounce the name of the place."
"We saw a football game in Piqua. The chief came riding out on a horse."
"What has that got to do with landing on the moon?"
"For one thing, Piqua nearly always beats Wapakoneta in football."
"Oh, forget it. I give up."

Lynn was about two-and-a-half that summer. We decided that the event was important enough for her to see it, so we woke her up and brought her into the den to watch. Her dad was away on business, so we were staying at my parents' house. She watched so closely as Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface and listened intently as he spoke those well-remembered words. Then, my dad took her outside to his rose garden, and pointed up into the sky. It was an old game with them. One of her first spoken expressions was, "See moon?"

So, that night, as they both looked up, he quietly told her that the moon in the sky was the same moon the men on TV had stepped onto. She looked at him with her particular earnestness, then back up at the moon, then toward the glass doors that led into the den and TV. Then she looked back at her grandfather and said, quite logically, "I don't b'leive dat, Dada."

I guess that will always be my memory of the moon landing.

Ann

alj wrote:

Then she looked back at her grandfather and said, quite logically, "I don't b'leive dat, Dada."

Ann
Interesting that she calls her grandfather "Dada". That's what I would call my grandfather... as it's a Bengali word.
I presume there's an Asian link there somewhere in your ancestry...

I was a teenage boy of fifteen when that moment occured and I was hooked on watching every report. I even had a model of a saturn v rocket.

I remember watching the event. It was exciting to witness an historical event.
Some years ago, I was told that the entire moon landing was a farce. The person said there was proof that NASA had fabricated the whole thing. Funny how that incident made me lose respect for the person. He was a known personality in the field of medicine. Of course his credentials for moon landings was a bit weak.

Dell and Emmelisa Planemaker are the first two children to travel in space and they reach Mars.

But their spaceship broke down and they were never heard of again.

The spaceship did break down but Emmelisa came up with a solution to save them from disaster. She didn't take the credit; she said her brother, Dell, made her do it.

Of course, they haven't been heard of since because I've only written six chapters of the sequel -- and all six are in need of a serious rewrite!

Without any real interest from an agent or publisher, the books are not going anywhere and there's no incentive to write. Ann mentioned that Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine would be a great asset in the classroom, helping children to learn about the inner workings of a computer -- and it would! However, there is no interest in publishing the book to reach children in schools. This is a tough business.

Write it, Shelagh. Good things may happen.

On the moon landing hoaxes, I always recommend anyone who has serious doubts to go pay a visit to KSC, Florida and see the Saturn V rockets first hand. Guaranteed they will return as someone converted to science.

In 2002, a close and influential friend of mine said something that made me lower my confidence on the moon landings from the nominal close to 100% to just 50%. Then I suddenly felt very unsure... did they go or was it all made up?

Then in 2003, I made it a priority to go see the action for myself, and in September of that year off I went. This is me next to a Saturn V:



Some things just have to be seen to be believed.

If you study the astrodynamics...the proof that a human moon mission is doable, is abundantly clear. The third stage of a Saturn V (S-IVB) in low Earth orbit can accelerate the CSM to 24,500 mph on a trans-lunar-injection (TLI) on a single impulse.

The Moon is on average 240,000 miles away. 240,000 divided by 24,500 gives just under 10 hours for a straight line flight-time. Allowing for a curved TLI trajectory, orbital capture at the lunar end, CSM separation, followed by a controlled descent sequence.....meant the astronauts reached the surface of the Moon 3 to 4 days after lift-off from the ground.
Piece of cake! (assuming the technology doesn't fail you, of course)

I was never aware of this until just a few days ago...

In July, 1969 Russia, then the USSR, was trying desperately to beat the
USA to the moon - and very nearly accomplished it. They sent an
unmanned mission to the moon that was going to pick up rocks and return
them to Earth. On July 21st their "Luna 15" descended too fast and
crashed into the moon.

Read the full article at:Astronomers Uncover Audio of 1969 Soviet Attempt to Beat U.S. to the Moon

Then while trying to find out if the above story was a hoax or not, I ran into this:

Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing


I love trivia!

Wow! Those are cool facts...thanks for sharing them Phil.

"7. When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle."

We've got the technology!

Neither my aviator husband nor I have any recollection of watching the moon landing as it happened.

At the time we were 31, had five children, one not yet a year old, the oldest eight, and we think we were moving to a new house. We only had a six-inch TV, which might be a slight exaggeration.

But I remember seeing the moon landing many times "after the fact," my husband had Neil Armstrong on his plane once, and we were taken on a tour through the space center in Florida by a member of my husband's fighter pilot squadron who was on Sky-Lab Three.

While attending the squadron reunion where we visited the space center, we were in an elevator with the astronaut and he called me by name. After we got off the elevator, I said to my husband, "I am impressed. This man has met many famous people, including Presidents, and he remembered my name."

My husband said, "Carol, you're wearing a name tag."

Carol

This is an old one, so you probably already know it, but it's still a good one, I think. I've heard that NASA spent a very large sum of money on developing a ball-point pen that would work in zero gravity. Later, during a conference with some of the Russians who flew and/or worked on the technology, when asked about their pen, the Russians said, "We used a pencil."

Ann

We were helped along, too, by having Werner von Braun and some of his buddies who developed the German V-2 rocket.

On the subject of Apollo moon landing Hoax if anyone doubts it really happend then go to the Nasa website and look at the latest LROC satellite photos one of which shows tracks from the Apollo 14 astronauts movements. A lower orbit scan of the landing sites is due soon and will give much more detailed pictures of the Apollo sites and the equipment left behind.

But I suppose the sceptics will say even these pictures are faked.