42 years since we landed on the Moon!

[iceman (Mike)]

Here's a bit of the restored footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ_mT...layer_embedded

What are your memories of the day?
Or if you were too young/not born, what are your favourite stories or footage about the Moon landing?

[gary]

Hi Mike,

In fact Armstrong put his foot on the moon now at 12:56 AEST.

I actually feel sorry for those who were too young or were not born who missed it.

By far the most monumental day in history I have ever witnessed and we all knew and appreciated this fact at the time.



As a background story that was going on at the time, the Soviets had launched their own unmanned space vehicle that was also
in lunar orbit at the same time as Apollo 11. As Cold War tensions were still high, everyone was asking what were they up to
and the worse fear was that somehow this would jeopardize the Apollo 11 crew. The Soviet vehicle began its decent after
Armstrong and Aldrin had already performed their EVA but apparently then crashed. The Soviets at the time simply made a brief
announcement that it had completed its mission. As it transpired, the vehicle was later identified as Luna 15 which was
an unmanned lander that had been designed to retrieve a soil sample and return it to Earth. It was a dramatic end to the Space Race.

[multiweb (Marc)]

It's been too long. I was 3 and I clearly remember my dad holding me still in front of the TV saying have a look at that. This is very important. So I watched this black and white fuzzy picture of a bloke climbing down a ladder then I said something along the lines: "ok!... can I go and play now?"

[iceman (Mike)]

haha great timing

[renormalised (Carl)]

I was sitting on the sofa at home, watching the news on TV. When Dad came home from work, I told him all about it. I wasn't going to school at the time. Mum was at work (she was a nurse)....my grandmother (Mum's mother) was looking after me at the time. She used to live with us...had the spare bedroom out the back of the house.

That entire program was an opportunity wasted....we should've never left the Moon. No thanks to politics, both within NASA and the US Government.

[gary]

Another memory in the weeks and months to the lead-up to the Apollo 11
mission was that NASA would release various gee-whiz facts about the
Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft.

Some kids at my school would memorize them and challenge each other in the playground.
For example, some kid might ask you how high the Saturn V was and the correct
response was to then ask "fueled or un-fueled?" There was a nominal height
but then the vehicle sagged a few inches under the weight of the fuel.

Or they might ask, "When the Command Module re-enters the atmosphere.
how much energy does it create?" and you would have to know that it was
enough energy to light Los Angeles for 104 seconds or to lift every person in
the United States ten and three-quarter inches off the ground".

The various fuel consumption figures for the Saturn V were staggering.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

One of the teachers brought in a portable TV and we watched live in class.

[Poita (Peter)]

I watched 'The Dish' again last night, it does a great job of capturing the fervour of the time.

[TrevorW]

Remember watching it when it happened when I was 14 and thinking this is my future, looks like I'll be dead before it happens again.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Remember watching it when it happened when I was 14 and thinking this is my future, looks like I'll be dead before it happens again.

Well, it won't be the US, next time. And not for a long, long time as far as they're concerned. It'll be Chinese and (possibly) Indian ships there next time.

[frolinmod]

Remember watching it when it happened when I was 14 and thinking this is my future, looks like I'll be dead before it happens again.

You and me both and I was just nine at the time.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by gary

As a background story that was going on at the time, the Soviets had launched their own unmanned space vehicle that was also
in lunar orbit at the same time as Apollo 11. As Cold War tensions were still high, everyone was asking what were they up to
and the worse fear was that somehow this would jeopardize the Apollo 11 crew. The Soviet vehicle began its decent after
Armstrong and Aldrin had already performed their EVA but apparently then crashed. The Soviets at the time simply made a brief
announcement that it had completed its mission. As it transpired, the vehicle was later identified as Luna 15 which was
an unmanned lander that had been designed to retrieve a soil sample and return it to Earth. It was a dramatic end to the Space Race.

Originally Posted by gary

Another memory in the weeks and months to the lead-up to the Apollo 11
mission was that NASA would release various gee-whiz facts about the
Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft.

Some kids at my school would memorize them and challenge each other in the playground.
For example, some kid might ask you how high the Saturn V was and the correct
response was to then ask "fueled or un-fueled?" There was a nominal height
but then the vehicle sagged a few inches under the weight of the fuel.

Or they might ask, "When the Command Module re-enters the atmosphere.
how much energy does it create?" and you would have to know that it was
enough energy to light Los Angeles for 104 seconds or to lift every person in
the United States ten and three-quarter inches off the ground".

The various fuel consumption figures for the Saturn V were staggering.

Cool, two amazing bits of trivia there Gary. The unmanned soviet vehicle crashed while the manned US vehicle went on to make history...kinda shows just how far ahead of the Soviets the US really was ...and how incredibly risky it all was.

Unfortunately I was only 2 years and 2 months old when The Eagle landed ...however, I distictly remember watching a luna landing for sure when I was very small.. so I suspect I was watching one of the later landings.

Mike

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I was 7 years old and watched it along with a school-full of other boggle-eyed kids in class at Castle Cove primary. I distinctly remember everyone actually absorbing the meaning of what was going on. We couldn't stop talking about if for weeks, and my teacher, Mrs. Brown was a real space nut. I guess she's who sparked my interest for life. Thanks Mrs. Brown!

[gary]

Throughout the 60's, 70's and 80's. the University of NSW Library use to receive
NASA publications and these filled several book cases. As those who have got through it
know, an undergraduate electrical engineering degree affords little time for sleep let
alone free time, but now and then I would find myself in the library distracted by the
vast NASA collection which would form an entertaining break from doing interminable
assignments.

One memorable historical work in the collection was entitled "Stages to Saturn"
and it chronicled the development of the Saturn family of launch vehicles.

The third stage of the Saturn V was known as the S-IVB (pronounced S 4 B)
and one particular paragraph in that official history where they gave an account
of its first test firing was quite funny and I always remembered it. Now with the
power of the World Wide Web I can share it here.

Originally Posted by NASA History Office document SP-4206, Stages to Saturn, Chapter 8

Consider, for example, the case of the petulant computer-printer-when the machine apparently took umbrage during the automatic checkout sequence in preparation for an acceptance firing. The moment of truth for the test arrived-the signal to fire. After uncounted hours of preparation, hundreds of workers now stood by to observe the climactic moment of ignition. In the crowded blockhouse, all eyes focused on the rows of computers and monitor screens displaying their last fragments of information. Finally, the test conductor typed in his "request" to start the terminal countdown for static firing. The computer whirred, and the automatic typewriter responded with a singular reply, "Say please." Startled, the test conductor concluded he had made a typing error, and repeated his original message more carefully. The balky computer was not to be denied. "Say please," it insisted. At this point the crowd in the blockhouse began stirring restlessly. The loaded S-IVB, readied for firing, remained poised nearby with thousands of gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen primed for detonation. People were getting tense. Reasonably certain he was only working against a faulty firing tape, the test conductor quickly decided to make one more try, rather than put it into discard and risk more precious time to put a replacement tape into operation. So once more, he entered into the machine his humble request to fire, with a polite notation at the end: "please." This time, there was no problem. "This is your programmer," the machine chattered back, "wishing you good luck." And with a roar, the rocket ignited.

[kustard (Simon)]

I was still gestating at the time but one of my friends was born on this day and his dad was always teasing him about how he (the dad) stayed home to watch part of the landing hehe.

[Brundah1 (David)]

Thanks Mike - great idea - makes us all think back to another era.

1946 I was born 2 years after Hilter's V2s started landing on London. So perhaps I have always lived in the space age.

1957 I had stood outside our house in the country to watch Sputnik 1 pass overhead.

In 1958 I won a Rotary prize - a book called "Modern Marvels of Flight" - this book had a artist's impression of a "Buck Rogers" style space ship sitting on its four rear wings on the surface of our Moon. From then on I dreamed, "Would I ever see a man land on the moon?"

1958 was also the year of my first flight in an aeroplane - a DH89 Rapide - yes a fabric covered bi-plane!

Two years later my dream became a possibility: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kza-iTe2100

1969 Just 9 years later I was a Qantas trainee Engineer sitting on the wing of 707 in a hangar actually living that dream! We were watching a portable TV with a faint B&W image of Neil Armstrong making that first step live!

1969 was also the first flight of Concorde, by coincidence my aviation career began 5 years earlier and ended just after the last Concorde flight.

14 Dec 1972 Just 41 months after Armstrong and a few hours after our son Andrew was born, I watched another B&W image of Eugene Andrew Cernan, as he became the last man to step off the Moon.

1993 Our family spent a day at KSC, watched a rocket launch with a satellite, drove past a Shuttle on Pad 39B, stood beside the preserved Saturn VB Moon Rocket and visited all the historic launch pads on Missile Row.

2012 Next year Andrew Gregor will celebrate his 40 Birthday and I will continue to dream of the day when another man (or woman) will step back onto the Moon! Andrew may live to see that day - maybe I won't.

So perhaps today holds memories of giant achievements in space for us baby boomers, but it is the end of the era laid down by Kennedy. I very much doubt we will see another "Buck Rogers" style space plane that can land on a runway under pilot manual control!

God speed and soft landing Atlantis & crew - its been a great ride.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Mate, you've lived through it all. How exciting.

[Brundah1 (David)]

Yes Marc, still gives me the same goose bumps!

Sad thing is my grandkids said Atlantis was boring, tried to get them to watch the last Shuttle space walk. But they are all dialed in to watch tonight's landing!

[gary]

Originally Posted by Brundah1

1958 was also the year of my first flight in an aeroplane - a DH89 Rapide - yes a fabric covered bi-plane!

Two years later my dream became a possibility: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kza-iTe2100

1969 Just 21 years later I was a Qantas trainee Engineer sitting on the wing of 707 in a hangar actually living that dream! We were watching a portable TV with a faint B&W image of Neil Armstrong making that first step live!

Hi David,

Thanks for posting this fabulous chronology that spans your life so far.

How far aviation came in such a remarkably short amount of time is also really
brought home when one considers that there were people who were living
when the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight in 1903 and lived to see
the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.

The night before the Apollo 8 crew set off on the first manned voyage to orbit the
Moon, they were visited by none other than Charles Lindbergh and his wife.
The Saturn V burned every second more than ten times the amount of fuel
Lindbergh used to fly across the Atlantic in 1927. The Lindbergh's watched Apollo
8 lift-off the following day.

During the 1960's, Boeing bought Lindbergh to a secret warehouse location
in New York where they had a mock up of the interior of the passenger cabin for the
747 which was then in its design and development stage and where they asked for
the great aviators opinion as a honorary consultant.

[Brundah1 (David)]

Gary,

I see your an Engineer too!

You live not far from our friend Jim who was an Electronic Engineer with the RAN and spent a few years on exchange with the USN at San Diego.

He was on a sonar acoustics course in Miami during 1972 and took the family to Orlando for the night Launch of Apollo 17 (This was the last Apollo mission and the only night launch. See my previous post my son was born just before Cernan stepped off the Moon on this last mission).

Jim and his family were on the KSC Causeway (this is approx 5 miles from Pad 30A), but the low frequency vibrations were very massive where they stood! Of course the huge candle could be seen up to 500 miles away as the Saturn 4B five engines slowly powered into the night sky.

That's 17,000,000lbs of thrust - a Qantas 747-438 (GE powered) generates 240,000lbs of thrust - so you need 70 747s to equal that! Here is a graphic comparing the largest space rockets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sa..._(06-2006).jpg

This video of Apollo 17 launch was also taken from the KSC Causeway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwc8E9fCLI

BTW Jim lives near you in Asquith.

DG