45 Years ago today!

Paul Douglass

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Great event, IMHO. Maybe we need something similar now days to get this country focused on. Maybe things would settle down a little. Again just MHO.

Landed on the Moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
"now days to get this country focused on."

Today whatever we landed on Moon, Mars or the Sun most today would not even know where or what it was.
It would not even rate a lift their head up out of the phone for ten seconds.

I use to think the Dick Tracy wrist radio would be a great invention. Now that we have them I have to think it was one of the worst inventions.

If I could snap my fingers and cause an event. I believe it would be "snap" and no more cell phones!!

Yes - After all that I have one. Only for times like on a dirt bike away from main roads. My wife would worry if I get real delayed.
Don't bother calling me on it because chances of me answering it are slim.

I recently got hearing aids. The place I got them from is pushing to hook them via bluetooth to the cell phone. I laugh at them. Hook to my hearing aid??? Are You crazy? I want to attach the phone to a trash can.
 
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We had a bunch of the grandkids over today. At the dinner table I told the whole gang about the moon landing. Only my grand daughter Abby thought it was cool and had a bunch of questions. The rest couldn't of cared less.
But I really can't blame them. With movies like star wars and star trek, walking on the moon seems pretty lame to them.

The landing energized our generation maybe they will see their generation land on Mars and find Elvis :rofl:
 
Well you guys had the visual side of the moon landing, for me it was real imagination. I remember the moment like i remember where i was on 9/11.
Except i had to listen on the radio and it was a moment that captured my imagination and i have never stopped marvelling at technology.
But i dont see the same spark in my kids. So much is just meh taken for granted not their fault its all just around and keeps on coming at such a rate little is special or amazing.
But to comprehend how amazing some of both todays tech and the lunar lander was, it helps if one knows a bit about the challenges of making it and making it work.
That lunar landers guidance systen had 32 Kilobytes of memory. By todays standard thats a miracle.
But so is the number of things that have to go correct for a smart phone to work.
I love being naive and marvelling at what has been done in the tech sector in my lifetime. You only get to live through evolution of this kind once. Now great inventions are well expected rather than amazing.
I still think radio is better than tv by far, but i do marvel at HD television free to air transmissions. Just wish the content was worth the quality of the technology. Somehow on one side we have excelled as humans and on the other i dunno but i feel regressed to the pits with reality tv, is that really the best we humans can do?
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins are heros to me, real ones not in a video game.

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I set up my dad's Pentax Spotmatic II on a tripod in front of the TV...about 4' if I remember right. Cable shutter trigger and a gasp. Some of those pic's are still around...color ones from later missions too. One of the greatest days ever!!
 
I remember driving hell bent for election across the top of Toronto on the 401, listening to it on the radio on my way to the airport. Later in the day I got to watch the constant replays on TV. We should be on Mars by now, and mining the asteroids, but everything fell flat. Every time you use your cell phone or minicomputer, and have an operation in hospital that involves things like CAT scans and MRIs, you have, at least partially, the space program to thank.
 
"Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins are heros to me, real ones not in a video game." and many more --- So true!

I live close enough to the Space Center that the shuttle would shake my windows on liftoff and two quick sonic booms on landing.

The Space Coast area has had it ups and downs just like the Space Program. In the 60's this area was all high tech then it went into steep decline.

Area been struggling for years. Lets hope it can all come back to life but the low key/budget future plans for the Space Program do not promise much.
 
Like most people of that time, I know exactly where I was. We were on a trip and had a reservation at a motel (there was a beautiful motel of that chain in my home town). We stopped and Myrna went in. She said, "This is a real tacky dump." However, we stayed because we did not want to miss the moon landing.

When we returned from the trip we mentioned this to the kids. Greg, Glenn's older brother, asked why on earth we stayed in the dump. He thought it was no big deal His comment was, "We have the technology so why would you stay in a dump just to watch it on TV?" It makes me sad, even today, to think that he considered the landing a non-event. Maybe I am just a romantic.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
We were living in Terrace BC at the time, I remember laying on the floor watching in wonder as it all took place on a small B&W TV. That night we went out to look at the moon, I somehow thought we would be able to see something....

I find this amazing, look at this picture.....

john_W._Young_on_the_Moon.jpg


Almost any other picture that you see from the 60's or early 70's LOOK like that time period, this does not, it does NOT look that dated, it looks like it could have been taken last week.
 
We were camping during the first lunar landing, but I remember crowding around a small B&W TV set. Back then they would broadcast most space missions for hours at a time.
 
Like so many others here, I was a kid huddled around the TV with my family, holding my breath and sitting on the edge of my seat.

I also remember getting up early on a February morning in 1962 to watch John Glenn's launch into space. And for some reason, I still remember that my dad made cinnamon toast for breakfast that morning.
 
Yep, and like many here, I also remember the launch of Sputnik I, and the consternation that caused, as well as the first flights of Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard. Gagarin is my favorite, considering the shaky foundation of the Soviet space program, and he still got in that thing and made it back. That took tremendous courage. There is a statue of him in front of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England, of all places.

097 Gagarin.jpg

Yuri Gagarin, photo by me.
 
Roger my assesment of Soviet space program is that they built stuff stout, not really attractive. Proof is their units are still being launched today.
But if we going to give credit fairly it has to be to the Germans both powers ended up using confiscated technology and people. :)
Makes me wonder what would have come out of original thought from scratch rather than going down the same roads.

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