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Post by Joe on Aug 26, 2012 1:45:13 GMT -5
The passing of Neil Armstrong today made me think back.
I was only 8 but already a NASA and Star Trek fanatic and way back in the 2nd grade had been the president of a "Space Club." That night my parents let me stay up and I watched the moonwalk from the comfort of my mother's lap.
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Post by flaminghotsauce on Aug 26, 2012 10:23:33 GMT -5
That night? I watched it in the late afternoon on my Grandmother's color TV. We didn't have color TV so we made a flying trip 20 miles so we could be there in time. I'm confused, I guess. It was definitely in the daytime.
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Post by Joe on Aug 26, 2012 15:08:21 GMT -5
I have it in my head it was after midnight, but that's not correct.
According to Wikipedia, the landing was on the 20th at 20:17 UTC and the EVA was at 02:56 on the 21st, which would have been 3:17 PM CDT and 9:56 PM CDT, respectively.
The video transmissions from the moon were in black and white.
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Post by Joe on Aug 26, 2012 21:32:02 GMT -5
The video transmissions from the moon were in black and white. Everything else was in color. I remember now they had primitive graphics and simulations. I think later during the rover missions they actually had a fullscale mock-up of the rover, in studio, they used for simulation. If my memory from HBO's From the Earth to the Moon is correct, during Apollo 12 Alan Bean whacked the color camera with a hammer trying to get it into the ground and accidentally killed it, so there was no color until 14 and Alan Shepard's 6-iron shot. |
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Ed Burke
Member
Healthy living is fine, but it's having fun that keeps us going!
Posts: 433
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Post by Ed Burke on Aug 27, 2012 19:43:51 GMT -5
The landing and EVA was on a day when I was ill and unable to get to work. I sat and watched a 19" B&W TV.
Stirring stuff, it was indeed a 'giant leap'. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and what they accomplished on that day have changed our way of looking at the world, at the universe. Thanks guys.
Many years ago there was an Aussie comedy film called "The Dish" where the centre of acivity was in fact the radio telescope just north of Parkes, New South Wales.
The scene was set as the time of the Moon landing where the telescope was part of the communications link to the astronauts. One of the characters was a young, dim witted security guard who was very excited about the space activity. His two way radio went off with some garbled message that he was trying to decipher, so he asked "Is that you Mr Armstrong?"
For two days now that silly phrase has been coming back to me and the departure of Neil A has, for me, left quite a mark. An era is closing and we are moving on.
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Post by louross on Aug 28, 2012 8:11:16 GMT -5
Wow! I was sitting in the right seat of a B727 somewhere over Kansas, according my logbook. Absolutely amazing- the moon landing.
lr.
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Post by johnl on Aug 28, 2012 15:54:58 GMT -5
It was definitely nightime in the UK! My parents were away on holiday, and an old school friend came round and we sat up watching it on a b/w television. I think we had the odd beer to pass the time, and we definitely celebrated the landing and the moonwalk with a quite a lot of (Veuve Clicquot and Guinness) Black Velvet!
I was fortunate enough to meet Neil Armstrong a few years later when he was the "surprise" guest of honour at a symposium.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Aug 30, 2012 19:14:25 GMT -5
A friend and I took the afternoon off and watched it at my apartment. I filmed it on Super 8 so my two boys would be able to remember it. (Yes, it was in black and white. My TV only showed black and white.) The two boys were playing on the floor as we watched it. now they're grown men in their 40's. The Super 8 film ruined itself years ago. But that's okay because my Super 8 projector died first. The replays of the event we see today are much better than my films of the TV.
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Post by Joe on Aug 30, 2012 20:53:21 GMT -5
Many years ago there was an Aussie comedy film called "The Dish" where the centre of acivity was in fact the radio telescope just north of Parkes, New South Wales. The scene was set as the time of the Moon landing where the telescope was part of the communications link to the astronauts. One of the characters was a young, dim witted security guard who was very excited about the space activity. His two way radio went off with some garbled message that he was trying to decipher, so he asked "Is that you Mr Armstrong?" OMG, I'd forgotten about that. I saw it on HBO or whatever a few years ago. Nice one. www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/ |
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