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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

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"Houston, The Eagle Has Landed"[/glow]

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I was a mere lad of 8 when the Apollo mission headed for the Moon. I was glued to the black and white TV set we had thirty five years ago. My ignorant friends wanted to play softball and other activities of simple youth, but I refused. I invited them instead to join me and watch this great event in human history. They shrugged and said "What for?", and went on their way. Amazed with the myopic mind set, I continued my vigilance, everything else was not as important. Tang was big then, and my mom made me a big pitcher of it, as I sat in front of the flickering TV set, taking in all I could.

Even back then I trusted Walter Cronkite and was eager to hear the NASA astronauts speak about the mission.

Walter Schirra I remember vividly....handling models of the Command module and the LEM...explaining the pitch & dock procedure for LEM SEP from the SB-IV.

And Top notch ABC News Space & Science reporter Jules Verne Berman, who knew his stuff.

My Dad, wanting to keep this event for posterity, took Polaroids of the landing. Kinda funny now, but although faded, quite cool to still have. It was evening by the time Armstrong pushed off the ladder and onto the surface. We were all just quiet and watched in stunned amazement at what was unfolding before us in real time.

I must have fallen asleep around 2:00 am. Got some rest, and went back at it again when I woke up. Funny how after the first Moon landing, I don't recall any following flights until the Skylab missions. Not even Apollo 13 do I recollect at all.

Last year, I won this great 3 DVD set of the Apollo Mission from Spacecraftfilms,com. It has over ten hours of raw footage, transmissions and practically every bit of minutia of the project one can think of. They go into visual detail on bolts, transport vehicles, Saturn V stacking, pad operations, mundane tasks during the trip and a whole lot more. A really terrific feature is the multi-angle sequence of shots of the same event from different angles.

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The Lift-off is not to be believed with Surround sound. I like to kick it up and shake the house. Brings a smile to my face every time I do.

I also have the commemorative "Vinyl" 2 album set of the manned missions from Mercury to Apollo 11. I sent away for it from a magazine and quite excited when it arrived addressed to me!

It's very hard for me to grasp the concept of 35 years. Apart from some aches and pains, I feel like I did when I was 8, and still have the same wonderment of space exploration and astronomy. It's too bad the American public is more interested in fluff and mindless trends. We should be on Mars already and beyond.

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*Update: Now it's five years later and we are at the 40th anniversary of the landing. I'm still as fascinated with it as I was 40 years ago. And now...I get to follow along in real time with the mission and a better understanding on what's going on:

astronomer.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=40years&thread=2521&page=1

Cool stuff never gets old.

[starbux]

Check out today's Lunar Photo of the Day for some rather poignant commentary.

[stargazer]

I was sitting in front of my grandparents tv the day this took off. My grandfather didnt go into work cause he wanted to see it then when they landed we both were in front of the tv. It was the only time I think me and my grandfather ever got away eating in the living room. Grandma was mad. I woud love to see them go back to the Moon. I hear the flag is now laying down. Time to stand it back up.

B

[starbux]

stargazer said:

I hear the flag is now laying down. Time to stand it back up.

B

I wonder who said this and how do they know this to be the case? The flag would be too small to see from Earth-based telescopes. Did the Clementine orbiter image it? If so, I would like to see the image. I don't think the ascent engine blast had blown it down, but I could be wrong about that, having been awhile since I watch the lunar liftoff footage.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The American flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew is indeed down. Buzz Aldrin has stated that as they lifted off, he was watching out the triangular window, and saw it keel over from the blast. It wasn't firmly planted, and as they did not know how long they would remain on the surface, and one of the priorities was to show the colors.

From The NASA Archives
The astronauts returned to the Lunar Module after 2 hours and 32 minutes on the surface and took this picture. The footprints of the astronauts and the lunar surface television camera can be seen. The flag was actually knocked over when by the LM's exhaust when the astronauts took off from the Moon at 1:54 p.m. EDT on July 21.
(NASA photo ID AS11-37-5545)

More here: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_11_30th.html

And speaking of colors, it has been estimated that the colors on all of the flags planted by the U.S. are long faded and unrecognizable. The harsh ultraviolet and other radiations from the sun have blasted any color from surfaces long ago.

Too bad. But at least our plaque is still there on one of the lander legs.

[Maddad]

It was a long time ago, but I remember the sense of awe as I watched that first Moon landing. Being born in June of 1953, I would have just turned 16.

Without the Soviet Union to compete against, we do not have a national will to go back. It's an odd combination of good and sad.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Dave,

You are so correct.

It is just a reflection on the simple mindset of the majority of people in general and the human condition. Unless it's a game to be won, or the childish satisfaction of putting someone down, (ala beating the Soviets), the sheer accomplishement of exploration and discovery is not of interest.

Money pours in for the construction of sports stadiums and outrageous salaries for men running around and wearing caps like little boys, but space exploration and the advancement of science has to beg for funds.

It just ain't right...and you just wait, some advanced civilization one day will deem us the bastards of the universe...I will just lower my head in shame.

Sigh

[Maddad]

Maybe not Joe. When we finally do make first contact, their reaction may instead be surprise that we rose so fast. Life large enough to leave behind a significant fossil record is half a billion years old. Intelligent life is perhaps onle a tenth of that, 50 million years old, found in whales in the seas. Our planet is 90 times older than intelligent life.

If you add just a billion years to the time Earth has been around, then you're giving us 100 times as much time as intelligent life has had to develop.

That extra billion years is extremely reasonable. Our sun is 4.5 billion years old in a galaxy that grew sun-like stars at least 12.8 billion years ago ( www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-20-04.html ). If ET comes from an extremely old star, then compared to us he may have had an incredibly longer time to advance his reach to the stars. If he took a billion years after developing intelligence to becoming a spce-going race, then he might be startled to discover that we've done it in only 50 million years, a 20th of the time it took him.