Moon landing anniversary

[Joe Barron]

My column on the anniversary, which I post here because the other topic was locked.

Yes, OK, I know, granted, I offered no proof. And I do not intend to. It is not that kind of column.

[DavidW]

I enjoyed reading that article.  I wonder what it would be like to have lived through that.  I don't see everyone getting excited like that again, even if we go to Mars.

[MishaK]

Appropriately, this just appeared on punditkitchen:

[Joe Barron]

Oh, please, let's not start this ...

[Szykneij]

I enjoyed reading that article.  I wonder what it would be like to have lived through that.  I don't see everyone getting excited like that again, even if we go to Mars.

It was an amazing time. I was in elementary school for the Mercury and Gemini flights, and in junior high school for the start of the Apollo program. It seemed that everyone around was glued to their TV sets for each liftoff and splashdown. (The scene in the Apollo 13 movie where the whole family is gathered around the the living room television looks very authentic.) I used to keep scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings and photographs of each flight. I still have tucked away somewhere all of the Boston newspapers printed the morning after Armstrong's first walk on the moon. I believe there were four or five daily newspapers at the time, and thanks to the great excitement over the lunar landing, Ted Kennedy's misfortune of the day before was relegated to the inner pages. Of all the space flights that occured during my youth, for some reason the Ranger 7 unmanned mission to the moon when I was nine years old was one of the most memorable. The newspapers were filled with picture after picture of views of the moon never before seen which I would cut and paste into my scrapbooks on the living room floor every night while my Dad watched the news.

[Sid]

Speaking to older people I know (from my parent's generation), the moon landing was a really positive and galvanising event. People all over the world watched it at home, work or at school. I can't think of any other event like this, save D-Day, when people across the globe huddled around their radios to hear about the beginning of the end of WW2...

[Gurn Blanston]

My column on the anniversary, which I post here because the other topic was locked.

Yes, OK, I know, granted, I offered no proof. And I do not intend to. It is not that kind of column.

That's a great story, Joe. Thanks for bringing back the memories so clearly. This happened in the summer that I graduated from high school, and like you, I spent the whole day (4 of them, actually) watching on television. We had just gotten our first color set the year before, and it was still a great novelty. At first I was disappointed that they weren't broadcasting in color, but then I kicked my own ass for that. Hell, they were broadcasting from the MOON! This was the essence of coolness! And I, too, spent it with Walter (for reasons I never understood, my father always called him "Joe Cronkite"). It was one of the first times in my life that I actually had the realization of seeing history made, even though many other things I saw, either live or on TV were historic. None of them could touch this.



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Listening to:
City of Birmingham SO / Jarvi  Andsnes / Hardenberger - DSCH Concerto in c for Piano & Trumpet Op 35 2nd mvmt

[Josquin des Prez]

Oh, please, let's not start this ...

Don't worry, Buzz Aldrin showed us how to finish it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU

A true American hero. :salute:

[bwv 1080]

There will never be anything to compare, as there is no real need to send humans into space.  Anything that can be proposed - i.e. a trip to Mars - can be potentially done better by robots, at much less cost.  I think all future space travel in anyone here's lifetime will be virtual

[Josquin des Prez]

need

And there in lies your mistake.

[Joe Barron]

A friend of mine sent me this reaction:

Before today I didn't have a favorite essay from your column, now I do. This was excellent. The battle of the authority figures for the heart and mind of one boy. Maybe that was the day you became a journalist instead of a priest (or whatever your mother wanted you to be). Really well done.

An interesting interpretation. I didn't think of it as a war over my mind while I was writing it, but I guess the theme, such as it was, grew in the telling. The subconscious at work. A writing professor of mine once said one always writes more than one knows.

[Joe Barron]

I still have tucked away somewhere all of the Boston newspapers printed the morning after Armstrong's first walk on the moon.

The best coverage of the landing:

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

In case you didn't know. The first Germans on the Moon were Meier (2nd) und Pöhlmann (1st), with their landing module "Wotan I".

http://www.youtube.com/v/lDgNc4yyYAQ

[karlhenning]

The best coverage of the landing:

Yes, stirring newsprint, there!

(Congrats, Joe!)