I’ve heard a ‘baby boomer’ definded as someone born after World War II who remembers the Apollo II moon landing. I remember being told about it at school, in the afternoon. I was five years old, in grade 1 at Batchelor State School in the Northern Territory of Australia.
It happened forty years ago today – July 20, 1969.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I remember as a grade 1 running late for school and seeing all the kids running from school (could see the school from home) to watch the landing. Sitting in front of the old black and white TV for days, oh the joy.
I do remember but rue that I chucked out the small plastic grammophone record of the audio of the of the first manned flight some years back. But I suppose it’s all on You Tube these days. 1969 – hmm, the Poseidon nickle boom and I was on a boat off Tweed Heads sampling beach sand deposits off shore.
Jennifer, I too was five at the time. I remember my parents watching it and thought it was boring. Now I’m fascinated by the early days of the space program and wish I could have shared in the excitement then.
It happened 40 years ago but noone will forget it. Just fascinated by what they have done with so this time’s technology.
This is the same government agency that now promotes the carbon dioxide = climate catastrophe story. I wonder why anyone here believes the 1969 story?
I did share in the excitement. Worked on the S/W for the tracking ships, orbit insertion and re-entry, and after the fire of Apollo 1 the land-based stations as they came on line. It was basically simple math but it was real hands-on science. We used computers and data recorders with less capability than the simplest desktop of fifteen years ago, big, slow and used mucho electricity. Exciting? Yes.
“This is the same government agency that now promotes the carbon dioxide = climate catastrophe story. I wonder why anyone here believes the 1969 story?”
There certainly are a lot of skeptics out there who don’t believe it. There is a lot of evidence out there that it is a hoax, and there has been no proper public debate on the issue.
I was 17 at the time and thought we would be on our way out of the Solar System by the time I was in my 50’s!!!
I guess Gubmint just can’t handle science and technology all that well HUH??
NASA’s big thing now is convincing everyone that we are destroyuing the earth with CO2. How is that for a followup to visiting the moon????
I would also point out that the last shuttle disaster was caused by a ridiculous insistence on a second rate insulation for the tanks that easily breaks off as opposed to the original insulation that didn’t. This poor material is preferred because of its environmental friendliness.
Of course, the small amount of the original insulation used on the shuttle boosters had a negligible effect on the world and Florida local environment. This made no difference to the lunatics running NASA. Even after that disaster they STILL use this second rate material.
“I would also point out that the last shuttle disaster was caused by a ridiculous insistence on a second rate insulation for the tanks that easily breaks off as opposed to the original insulation that didn’t. This poor material is preferred because of its environmental friendliness.”
Another paranoid urban myth.
SJT,
“Another paranoid urban myth.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
So, you DENY the video of the chunks knocked out of the heat tiles by the crappy eco-friendly foam that keeps breaking off??
You DENY the hours that NASA now takes to scan every inch of the shuttle after any indication of foam striking the craft during take-off??
You DENY that they operated the shuttle for years with no foam incidents???
Since I am obviously an idiot, please explain to us what caused the breakup of the shuttle during re-entry genius!! It would be good if you could point to supporting video and reports of the incident investigators!!!
You can then explain to us exactly why the change of foam either had nothing to do with the original not being eco-friendly!!!
If you DENY there was a change of foam, again, explain why it started breaking off. Poor workmanship?? OOOPS!!! That would also be on a crappy NASA for not fixing the process!!
SJT: “There certainly are a lot of skeptics out there who don’t believe it. There is a lot of evidence out there that it is a hoax, and there has been no proper public debate on the issue.”
The term fantasy comes to mind. Sound familiar?
And facts are determined by public debate as well?
I must be living in very interesting times.
SJT, I must admit there are a few in the lunatic fringe or the uneducated that might believe it was a hoax, but that only explains things about their mental abilities. It certainly does not prove anything about the science.
Let me assure you, as one who was on the ground collecting and processing the C and X band radar signals during these missions, it was no hoax. Of course, if we could have perpetrated that hoax, then we had the technology to go to the moon manned and/or unmanned. Then of course, if the moon landing was a hoax every space flight since based upon the technology and its outgrowths are hoaxes.
At least then we declared the space program a challenge. Unlike today when everything is a crisis. Where have I heard that word again? Oh yeah, in the historical rhetoric leading from Global Warming then to Climate Change and finally when all things were failing the Climate CRISIS.
The human mind works its magic to trick its owner, and then some just don’t work at all. They just get stuck in some prepubescent regime where they thought they knew more than everybody.
SJT, that one was worth a SHEESH and a PSHAW!
It was a warm July night, 8-year old Adam was half way across the English Channel on a car ferry, I vividly remember being out on deck, under a clear night sky, Mars shining brightly against that black-blue mid-summer night sky.
The tannoy crackled and the words “This is your captain speaking, the Americans have just landed on The Moon” caused a rapturous round of applause to echo around the ship.
From Armstrong to Hansen, how NASA has fallen.
For those who claim that the landings were a hoax, I support Buzz Aldrin’s approach to dealing with them!
They obviously left a great deal of emissions on the moon as well as when they left earth. No wonder both bodies are warming. I hope they start becoming environmentally conscious now that we know what happens.
Louis,
The Mythbusters , have confirmed the moonlanding to be the real McCoy.
I think we could also leave it up to Jamie and Adam to bust this crackpot CO2 theory quite easily. They could fill up a greenhouse with CO2 and see whether it heats up. All on TV of course.
“You DENY that they operated the shuttle for years with no foam incidents???”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/21/columbia/main545149.shtml
“Shuttle Foam Had History Of Problems”
The incident I remember best was the one involving Walter Cronkite, who has just passed away at 92. He was choreographing the movements of the astronauts for us in a very serious time frame. As Aldrin, or whomever walked onto the surface first, began his step, Cronkite was ahead of him saying, he’ll do this, then that.
When Aldrin hit the surface, he started to leap about under 1/6th Earth gravity having a real good time. Cronkite lost it. He bellowed into the mic that he wasn’t supposed to do that, explaining what he was supposed to do. Cronkite was outraged.
That incident alone is proof positive for me that the landing happened. There no way Cronkite could have been enlisted in a conspiricay or hoax, he was too damned straight. It would also have been terribly difficult to set up that peculiar motion available under 1/6th g, with all those bulky suits on and the little trails of dust rising as he jumped. I highly doubt, as well, that anyone would have built in that ad libbing, especially with Cronkite as a straight man.
There’s no doubt in my mind that they were on the Moon.
SJT,
Let me show you how poor your reading comprehension is.
” They also noted that the process of applying foam to that part of the tank had not changed since 1993.”
Exactly when did the shuttle start flying?? Wasn’t it in 1982??? This also says nothing about the foam formulation, only the PROCESS OF APPLYING THE FOAM!!!
“NASA has said previously it was aware of four flights since 1983 where foam broke off that part of shuttle fuel tanks, most recently on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station by Atlantis that began Oct. 7, 2002”
There have been foam incidents on almost every flight since the disaster, yet, there were only 4 leading up to the disaster?? Also notice that they give no actual dates for WHEN foam incidents happened. Since the formulation changed in 1997 all 4 incidents COULD HAVE been after, or they could have been after the ’93 procedure change. I am not claiming that they were, only that the story does not provide a reasonable minimum of information to make any observations.
This is a typical MSM fluff report. No real facts. No real investigative reporting.
At least they don’t DENY foam problems. Of course, you still haven’t proven your claim that it is an urban myth. You HAVE proven your reliance on shoddy sources and belief in authority figures.
Since you didn’t present investigative reports I will reply with my own biased news:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77832,00.html
Notice the biased Fox story includes substantially more DATA on percentage of damage due to pre and post eco-foam. Still not enough.
http://www.his.com/~sepp/Archive/weekwas/2003/Feb8.htm
Includes some interesting information about an advisory board that was fired.
Another article on the general incompetence of NASA’s handling of the disaster aftermath:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/Harmful/Materials/new_york_times_07_31_05_1.htm
Come on SJT. Ya gotta do better than that!!!
Gordon Robertson,
Walter Cronkite was also the man who convinced the US, more than anyone else, that the Tet offensive was a huge loss for the US and victory for the N. Vietnamese even though the Viet Cong were literally wiped out and a huge amount of the N. Viet. military capabilites were destroyed with comparatively modest losses for the US.
Walter Cronkite was instrumental in convincing the US and the US Gubmint that Vietnam was unwinnable and we had to leave.
Walter Cronkite was very good at propaganda. It is not surprising that you would believe whatever he presented.
By the way, why would he have to KNOW the landing was being staged? Any good showman would have sent him a script that would differ in ways to extract genuine reactions!!
If IPCC types had been in charge of Apollo missions then the crew would have been sent on a hockey stick trajectory (no matter what data were entered) never to be heard from again.
The foam problem is real. Back after the Montreal protocol all sorts of things got changed including the formulation of 2 part polyurethane foams because they used to evolve CFCs during the cure to create the “foam”. At least some of the new formulations had problems. Either the foam would eventually crumble to nothing and lose any insulating properties(I’m told there were enormous problems with cool room construction in the early 1990’s and I think I had a fridge that lost its foam insulation that way) or the foam would fail to set hard and continue to expand. This caused a problem on the propeller blades of a few motorgliders that were kevlar/carbon skins filled with the foam. Your engine doesn’t make the right rpm when the blades become 50% thicker than they ought to be.
NASA got an award some years ago for being green because they used the new “green” foam on the ET of the shuttle when they could have used the old formulation and got an exemption.
Only thing to do with NASA is take it behind the barn and kill it. It is a welfare organisation that sometimes has something to do with space.
Anyone here aware that a privately developed rocket put a commercial payload in orbit a couple of weeks ago? For something like a few percent of the cost that NASA could do it for. http://www.spacex.com
As for SJT: The Society of Barking Moonbats is sending you your membership card by express mail.
MDM : LOL!
“There have been foam incidents on almost every flight since the disaster, yet, there were only 4 leading up to the disaster?? Also notice that they give no actual dates for WHEN foam incidents happened. Since the formulation changed in 1997 all 4 incidents COULD HAVE been after, or they could have been after the ‘93 procedure change. I am not claiming that they were, only that the story does not provide a reasonable minimum of information to make any observations.”
They also stopped painting the outside of the foam, to save weight. Which was it?
Faux News? No wonder you’re a conspiracy theorist.
Why the big fanfare after 40 years? Is it because this is the international year of astronomy, or is it because the astronauts won’t be around for the 50 th? Or perhaps political correctness about the space race has faded these past 10 years and this momentous historical event can be truly celebrated.
What a time it was to be a kid in the 60s, this was science fiction turning into a reality! I think the whole world needs a public holiday on July 20 to celebrate what mankind can do if we put our mind to it. True, it was a giantic competition between nations, but unlike wars very few lives were lost. Better to do battle in sport than on the battlefields.
kuhnkat “Walter Cronkite was very good at propaganda. It is not surprising that you would believe whatever he presented”.
I’m not defending Cronkite, who I thought was a pompous ass. He just seemed too straight to deliberately mislead viewers. I think it’s a stretch to say he was good at propaganda, I don’t think Walt knew where he was half the time. I could see someone like Ted Koppel seeming devious, but when the chance came for him to back Gore and screw people like Fred Singer, he refused to participate, much to his credit.