I'm getting this in early. A Columbus event ! July 20th 1969. Almost 50 years after Alcock & Brown did the 1st transatlantic flight, a couple of intrepid Americans walked on the moon for the first time ( Armstrong & Aldrin). Doing the shepherding in orbit was of course Mike Collins. If you were around at the time, did you watch the tv transmission of the live event and where were you ? If you hadn't been born yet, what did your parents tell you about their memories of the events ? Where were they at the time ? please log in to view this image
I was too young to really understand the full significance but it was exciting for a 5 year old. But of all the incredible things around it the thing that still amazes me most was the idea that Orville Wright and Neil Armstrong could have actually met. Armstrong was 17 when Wright died.
I was in my final year of school; I couldn't get enough of the Apollo programme. The cold war was in full swing, the idea that the Russians weren't watching Apollo 11 every inch of the way to the moon, and back, is absolutely laughable - they would have loved to have shared with the whole world that the mission was a hoax. Conspiracy theorists can **** the **** off on this one.
Wasn't born but anything to do with space has always fascinated me. Very jealous I wasn't around to witness it myself tbh. Maybe I'll get to see us in Mars before I die, hopefully
I read a book about the men that went to the moon ! They've all struggled mentally in one way or another since then . Probably the fact that they've left the earth and come back and nothing else could get anywhere near after it !
Yeah deffo that, and especially for the first who went up, knowing it would be a first, the scale of what it actually was we were trying to do would have been massive emotionally. Certainly life changing. Being in space is one thing. But to stand on another planets surface and look at earth, I can't think of anything more beautiful than that tbh (no homo)
Yes I bet it is an unbelievable site ! Also looking up at the moon and thinking you've left earth , stood on another world ( moon ) and you can never get off earth again must twist your mind a bit !
Strap yourself to the babies in your avatar and you'll certainly feel like you're in Heaven, if not Mars.
We had been in Aus for just under 12 months and I was working for Pepsi Cola in Sydney. My husband was working for ICI Aus close by at their Botany site and they set up a TV in a laboratory to view the live landing. No such interruption of work for me so I watched a replay of the event later at home.
If you’re in the U.K., or generally follow the convention of dates and time in space, the anniversary is actually the 21st July. It was still the 20th July in the USA thanks to the time difference, and so that’s the date that gets quoted thanks to the American domination of film and tv programmes on the matter. But if you’re a purist, then it was 2.56am UTC on 21st July, which was 4.56am BST (as we were experimenting 1968-1971 with BST all year and double BST in the summer). Just my bit of pedantry that gets rolled out every year at about this time, but I can foresee a lot of shouting at the telly over the next 5 weeks as few journalists will pick it up...
This is a great website that covers the chatter between the astronauts and Houston on final descent. https://www.firstmenonthemoon.com/
Currently hanging in my office is this, Times late edition July 21, 1969 (notice they date it July 21 not 21 July). please log in to view this image Notice the second story at the bottom, the Chappaquiddick Affair. Quite a front page!!! Don't ask me why its sideways - I can't get tinypic to do it the right way up!
The Pale Blue Dot... Photograph of planet Earth taken on 14 February 1990 by the unmanned Voyager 1 spaceprobe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers please log in to view this image Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1816628-pale-blue-dot-a-vision-of-the-human-future-in-space