OT: We Choose the Moon

[1EyedJacks]

I was in first grade when the Apollo 11 launched on the 16th of July forty years ago. I thought some of you might enjoy this reenactment that is taking place.

http://wechoosethemoon.org/


TTFN,

Mike

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: 1EyedJacks

I was in first grade when the Apollo 11 launched on the 16th of July forty years ago. I thought some of you might enjoy this reenactment that is taking place.

http://wechoosethemoon.org/


TTFN,

Mike

Yep.. my 40th birtday is coming... sadly we (as a human race) didn't persue the dreams of those days... nowadays we are thinking of going back to the moon in 10+ years... sad...


Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite (1992)

I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died
With the eagles flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why
Are the seas still dry
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Did we fly to the moon too soon
Did we squander the chance
In the rush of the race
The reason we chase is lost in romance
And still we try
To justify the waste
For a taste of man's greatest adventure

I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died
With the eagles flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why
Are the seas still dry
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Have we lost what it takes to advance
Have we peaked too soon
If the world is so great
Then why does it scream under a blue moon
We wonder why
If the earth's sacrificed
For the price of its greatest treasure

I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died
With the eagles flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why
Are the seas still dry
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

And when we shoot for the stars
What a giant step
Have we got what it takes
To carry the weight of this concept
Or pass it by
Like a shot in the dark
Miss the mark with a sense of adventure

Don't blame this sleeping satellite

I blame you for the moonlit sky
And the dream that died
With the eagles flight
I blame you for the moonlit nights
When I wonder why
Are the seas still dry
Don't blame this sleeping satellite

Don't blame this sleeping satellite


Leo "Apollo11"

[GI Jive]

I was 9 during the Apollo 11 mission. I remember being allowed to stay up to watch Neil Armstrong take his first step (I think it was around 2AM). By pure chance, our family vacation coincided with the astronauts' return. We were in New York City the day of their ticker tape parade. Spectators lined the street shoulder to shoulder 5 or 6 people deep. We couldn't see a thing until some guy I never saw called out in a New York accent, "Hey, let the kids up front, they won't be in anybody's way." It scared my parents but up we went. I saw Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins for all of three seconds as they rode past but it was a great sight.

[tocaff]

I'll always remember the night that Neil stepped foot on the moon.  I was in my 1967 Mustang with my girlfriend and what occurred I'll never forget.  [;)]

[Zacktar]

My favorite JFK speech, and one of the best by any American president:

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon... (interrupted by applause) we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

I'll always remember the night that Neil stepped foot on the moon.  I was in my 1967 Mustang with my girlfriend and what occurred I'll never forget.  [;)]

Sounds like you might of taken a step for mankind also.

[RevRick]

forty years ago at this time I was in boot camp in Orlando. On the 16th, all classes stopped, all drills stopped, and most of us wound up on the roof of one of the class buildings. We could see the Saturn V rocket with the Apollo 11 capsule on top lifting up into the sky with the naked eyeball. When the Eagle landed, the chief and several of the other instructors brought in small TVs so we could watch it. And it was at 2AM. Most of us did not get any real sleep that night, so the next day was kind of rough, but we were in our next to last week anyway, cocky and full of our selves because we were in the running for honor company. So, we flew through that day and watched some more that night. Amazing time.

I wonder why our country can pull itself together to do such amazing things, and then drop them without the follow through. We should have been on the moon at the turn of the millenium, but didn't. Sometimes, we are so short sighted that we can't see the enormity of the possible gain because we are afraid of the cost, and endure the greater cost of wasted opportunity. Or we can't muster enough people to see the reality of the benefits of the investments in the new technology for all people because some think that the money spent is being shot up into space with the rockets rather than spent creating new jobs, new technology, new areas for growth and industry right here in our own towns. But then again, Heinlein had it correct: Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

[Anthropoid]

A threat of "the bad guys" beating us really seems to motivate us Yanks.

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: Zacktar

My favorite JFK speech, and one of the best by any American president:

we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard

Any idea what the "other things" were?

[rjopel]

I was 2 1/2 I remember my parents waking me up and watching the landing on TV.

[morganbj]

I was a junior in college and working as a longshoreman in Galveston that summer.  I remember getting home about 3pm, and having to wait until 7:30 or 8:00 when the landing occurred.  Waiting the additional six hours or so until Armstrong climbed down seemed like an eternity.  I'll never forget the feeling of "we've got some guys on the freaking' moon!"
 
As an aside, I started to work at a grocery store right across NASA 1 Road from NASA a year or so later (the end of my senior year, as I recall).  I was still working there when Apollo 13 happened.  I worked the evening to about 3am shift.  I'll never forget the engineers coming over and buying stuff to eat and drink since they were all at NASA 24-7.  We sold a lot of cokes, potato chips, bread, coldcuts, etc.  And cans of coffee.  I'll never forget the coffee, and the cigarettes.  One guy must have bought 10 five-pack boxes of little cigars.  Most of them were very upset and worried, but it seemed like all of them were saying things like "we're not going to lose them.  We'll figure it out.  We'll get them home."  Some, though, just shook their heads when we asked them how it was going.  My boss called us all in for the splashdown, or incineration, in the middle of the day, maybe 11 or 12, I think it was.  He wanted us to all be there when the NASA guys finally came out to go home.  We watched the thing on a little black and white TV (gee, I guess almost all of them were black and white then)  in his cubicle by the cash registers.  There was nobody in the store but us.  Everybody was at home watching.  Almost immediately afterwards, the engineers flooded over and cleaned us out of every can of beer and wine bottle in the place.  What a day.
 
Those were special times.  I think they're gone forever.
 

[anarchyintheuk]

Thanks for the story. It's interesting to hear the effects that an historic event has on the people surrounding it.

[John Lansford]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

A threat of "the bad guys" beating us really seems to motivate us Yanks.

Yes, once there's no longer a threat we tend to indulge in a lot of naval-gazing and self destructive actions. I was less than 10 years old when Armstrong landed on the moon, but still remember the grainy images sent back as his lander approached the surface, and then when he made that historic first step.

It's a shame that the penny-pinchers and inward thinkers ended up controlling NASA after that. We're still trying to recover from that giant step back.

[MemoryLeak]

I missed it. I was headed for my first cruise to Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam. No T.V. coverage in those days on board the ship.

[DuckofTindalos]

I'm surprised none of the conspiracy nutters have turned up yet. Happily surprised, but still...[:D]

And I have no stories on where I was, since it was 4 years before I was born.

[Zacktar]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

ORIGINAL: Zacktar

My favorite JFK speech, and one of the best by any American president:

we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard

Any idea what the "other things" were?

Not very specifically; it was before my time and the speech sticks to space-race issues for the most part. (Full text available here.) I expect that he was referring to all of the domestic and international challenges facing the US at the time, from the Cold War through the Civil Rights movement, but that's just my very post-hoc supposition.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I'm surprised none of the conspiracy nutters have turned up yet. Happily surprised, but still...[:D]

And I have no stories on where I was, since it was 4 years before I was born.

I've heard that a bunch of "never before seen" photos of the moon landing will be released on the 40th aniversary.

I have also heard the "conspiracy nutters" say that they weren't released before because there was something in the photos that he gov didn't want the people to see and that now they have the technology to edit picture to hide the "abnormality" which they didn't have 40 years ago. There is always something, isn't there.

[Zacktar]

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

I have also heard the "conspiracy nutters" say that they weren't released before because there was something in the photos that he gov didn't want the people to see and that now they have the technology to edit picture to hide the "abnormality" which they didn't have 40 years ago. There is always something, isn't there.

That's the lovely thing about being a conspiracy nut -- they can claim that a complete lack of evidence supporting their position is just more proof that the conspiracy is at work! [:D]

[RevRick]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

ORIGINAL: Zacktar

My favorite JFK speech, and one of the best by any American president:

we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard

Any idea what the "other things" were?

From earlier in the speech....

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

[John 3rd]

I'm a big fan of the Space Program and NASA.  It is driven me crazy WAITING to head back to the moon.  President Bush laid out the goals for NASA over the next 20 years about 4-5 years ago.  We simply have to FUND it!  Wish NASA could have taken a cut of all those patents created for Apollo and other programs.  Those alone might fund the program significantly.  Oh, well...