One small step ... Farewell Neil Armstrong

[Archie_tect]

The moon landing was the only time my junior school allowed us the watch TV in school... we all crowded into one classroom to watch it... fantastic!

 

[lejogger]

RIP Neil Armstrong.

Truly one of Hollywood's most underrated actors

 

[alans]

And as Alan Shepherd said, it was a sobering thought that each of the parts was made by the lowest bidder.

I recollect reading that somewhere; together with the observation that the moon flight/landing/return etc was all prototype flight,notwithstanding all the pre-flight simulation.
Star Trek? these blokes were the real deal,they boldly went for real.

RIP Man of the Moon

 

[Fab Foodie]

How exaclty has the world changed?

Is a good question ....
Of course there was the politics of the time which would have been very different if the Americans failed and the Russiand suceeded.
I've no doubt also that the technology the Space-race created would have happened too, but over a different timescale, so that may also have had implications.

To my mind though, the biggest ways in which it changed the world was in the human psyche, knowing that we could achive hitherto impossible goals through our resourcefulness and that we were seemingly no longer bound to planet earth, that the road to the universe was now open to endless possibilities.
My other thought is that the images and experiences brought back from space also had a notable impact regarding the way we view our planet, this oasis in space upon which we live, it's shocking beauty when viewed from the moon has brought an awareness that Earth is a precious thing and we should work together for its protection.

 

[GM]

I remember the Moon landing quite vividly. I was working down in Salisbury on a shop fit out, and when we heard that they were about to land on the moon we all downed tools and watched it on the tv's in Radio Rentals shop window.

 

[atbman]

I'd been intending to stay at home for the landing and stay up for the first steps, but I was asked to compere a folk club in Coventry because the organiser was elsewhere, so I took my little transistor radio and organised the half-time break around the actual landing.

I was absolutely gobsmacked that virtually no-one in the audience was in the slightest bit interested in listening and the commentary was so intrusive and uninformative that I couldn't actually make out the moment of the landing

 

[Arch]

Just out of interest, I looked up how many of the men who walked on the moon are still alive. Out of 12, 8 are now still living, with the others who've died dying relatively young (60s and 70s). Although when you think of the test pilots and the like from whom astronauts were drawn, living to your 60s was probably an acheivement.

But I digress. Anyway, 8 men left, and they are all in their 70s and 80s. I'm afraid it won't be long before there's no one left alive who walked on the moon, which is almost more sad to me than any individual passing.

I was born about a month before the first landing, and I've always been proud of the fact that I was there for it on telly, if only asleep in a carrycot.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

My Dad apparently wasn't feeling too well so went to bed and missed it! Yes, well done Dad, you have just missed only one of the defining moments of the last century for the sake of a headache.

Me? I wasn't born at the time, but I just love it all, especially after Apollo 13 came out. I think I've seen that film more than any other and could have performed it word for word at one point.


People do have a really strange attitude to it all though, because I was once called a sad bastard for knowing all the names of the Astronauts involved!




Sent from The Ocean Of Storms (I just love that name!).

 

[Stephenite]

Neil Armstrong. The man responsible for the United States most unique achievement: planting the Stars and Stripes somewhere without having to kill anyone.

Seriously,
RIP. Definitely a hero to me when growing up. I was a little over one year old at the time, and my dad tried to keep me awake to watch the landing, moonwalk but to no avail.

For those interested: Moondust - Andrew Smith is a very good book where the author tracks down the 9 (at the time) remaining moonwalkers for interviews.

 

[classic33]

My Dad apparently wasn't feeling too well so went to bed and missed it! Yes, well done Dad, you have just missed only one of the defining moments of the last century for the sake of a headache.

Me? I wasn't born at the time, but I just love it all, especially after Apollo 13 came out. I think I've seen that film more than any other and could have performed it word for word at one point.


People do have a really strange attitude to it all though, because I was once called a sad bastard for knowing all the names of the Astronauts involved!




Sent from The Ocean Of Storms (I just love that name!).

This thread answers the second question
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/106991/page-2

 

[snorri]

Funny the things that come back from that era.
I can remember answering the 'phone at work "Tranquility Base, peep" .
That threw a few people for a while.

 

[Accy cyclist]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f_DPrSEOEo

 

[Brains]

I remember aged 7 dad waking me up at almost 3am to come and watch it, he's still got the daily mirror from that morning somewhere.

I'm the same age as you, so this is my memory as well, and then going out into the garden in my pyjamas to look at the full moon and being disappointed that even with a good pair of binoculars I was unable to pick out the lunar shuttle on the surface

 

[BrumJim]

On the face of it, Neil Armstrong was a remarkable man, agreeing to go where no one had ever gone before, not knowing if it would succeed, not knowing what he would face, and having the hopes and aspirations of an entire nation on his soldiers. I thought that he was just a brave and intelligent man in the right place the right time.

Turns out he was much more than that. I haven't got a reference to hand at the moment, but I remember hearing/reading that due to problems on the approach, when the lunar module was getting ready to land on the moon it was a little short of fuel. In fact, so short that one mistake on the approach, one unnecessary correction, would have left them both on the moon surface for ever. The world was watching. Under such immense pressure, Neil took the module down to the moon and nailed it. Like threading a needle first time with a tiger breathing down your neck, like hitting the bullseye or pocketing the final black whilst the timer on the bomb counts the last few seconds to zero. Without even hinting that there was a problem, that things were a bit tight.

That makes him the coolest customer who has ever taken to the skies. And therefore a true hero, even above those engineers and scientists that got him there.

 

[palinurus]

There was around 15s of fuel left on landing- a number of different events during the descent didn't go to plan, much fuel was used avoiding a boulder-strewn area near the landing site, Armstrong flew part of the descent manually. The descent and ascent engines were separate so using all of the descent fuel would not necessarily have left them stranded on the moon.

Having said that the ascent engine wasn't entirely reliable during testing, in addition the switch on the circuit breaker to arm it had broken off. Aldrin improvised using a pen.