Apollo 11 landing on the moon

[razz]

As I have read articles about this event of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, it has made me wonder how much it impacted world history at the time and now, what changes occurred as a result and what the future holds as a consequence.


I remember thinking, at the time, that they were a gutsy crew with an awful lot of faith in technology. Now I understand better how many people were involved in making it all happen. It opened up possibilities for activities that were considered just dreams.

What is your take away as you read about this moon landing or are you 'ho-hum' about it?

[catherine]

My take-away, being kind of a "big picture" type of person, is that when JFK said, "We will have a man on the moon by the end of the decade" and we achieved it in July 2019, it shows the power of intention (sounds like a Wayne Dyer book). I actually say that to DH when he says, "We'll never be able to abandon fossil fuel" or "Solar is too expensive" etc. I tell him, think about JFK and the moon landing: if you don't have a vision, you will never achieve. The details don't matter. I don't care that we beat the Soviets--for me it's the principle of achieving the perceived unachievable.

That's my take-away. I do remember sitting and watching the moon landing with my great-aunt, who was 89 at the time, and whose father had owned a livery stable in Bridgeport, CT. So powerful for me to know that she had gone through horse-and-buggy, railroad, cars, planes, and rockets to the moon in her lifetime.

[pinkytoe]

I was very aware of it as a teen since my father was part of the medical crew at NASA. It seemed like everyone in the country was excited and that it fostered a sense of unity in achieving the goal. It has been interesting to watch the historical coverage and brings back memories. So different from today's cynical outlooks and divisions.

[oldhat]

I'm old enough to have watched the moon landing. At the time I was just as caught up in the enthusiasm of it all as everyone else, but in hindsight I'm not so sure. I guess you can argue that, expensive and risky as the moon landing was, it was something worth doing at the time.

Now, however, I have no enthusiasm for manned space flight. (Or womaned either.) I think they've done some amazing things with robotics and should keep that up. But the idea of putting a man on Mars, or even back on the moon, seems wasteful at a time when life is so imperiled on Earth. Let's learn how to care for this planet before we fly off to trash another one.

[ToomuchStuff]

Before and after the moon landing, it has had a great effect. I am off to work now, so I am going to have to come back and finish this later.

[LDAHL]

When I was eleven, I thought it was a great achievement. Fifty years later I still do. I’m a little disappointed there’s not an American flag planted on Mars by now. I’m sure my eleven year old self would feel the same way. Of course, then we be hearing about “If they can land people on Mars, why haven’t they solved my problems yet?”.

[ToomuchStuff]

Prior to the moon landing, we had Operation Paperclip. If we had left them for trial, I wouldn't have a friend, whose parent was born after their father was brought with the rockets.
Prior to the LANDING, family history has my grandfather, working on some sort of anti-vibration base for some tools that needed to be calibrated/extremely accurate, for some parts of what NASA was building.
After the disaster of Apollo 1, or maybe before, NASA decided it needed to be able to fit a computer in the craft and decided integrated circuits, would allow them to get to a reasonable size. If it weren't for that, I could easily see either our computers now, being where they were in the 1980's, or the tech being kept for the military and the National Reconnaissance Office.
Arguably, Apollo 8, long term, has had a bigger impact. (most number of people ever photographed at the same time, and that picture, makes people focus on Earth differently), the landing garnered the largest audience and made the world more unified, if only for a moment. The next closest, was probably Apollo 13.
Things are able to be tested, that could move from theories, to laws (remember this?):


All this tech, has helped us with everything from satellites and cell phones, cars (tech helping them go to 100K for a tune up, rather then 12K), to sending stuff to other planets (unmanned and safer, less costly) to of course, Tang.

[Rogar]

The different specials and articles have been fascinating. I have the some vague nostalgic memories of watching the landing. (Not to age me, but I actually remember the family going out on the front lawn during the summer and watching for the early satellites. I was pretty young.) We've grown accustomed to digital technology that it's almost taken for granted, so it seems somewhat incredible they were actually able to pull it off with primitive computers probably less powerful than simple cell phones. It required rooms crammed with human number crunchers. Even the story of Von Braun, the German V2 rocket scientist is interesting. I guess he was something of a celebrity in the day.

Plus the courage of the astronauts! An interesting thing to me is the docking of the lunar module with the orbiter. If they missed, they would float forever in space. And the orbiter was going 4,000 mph. I don't think their return was all that probable and things did go wrong. I guess there were three more Apollo missions that were canceled, in part due to the risk, but also something that can be pinned on Nixon.

I'm not sure how I feel about going to mars. It almost seems more like some sort of expensive nationalistic rally and I wonder what gains would be made, i.e. a cost/benefit. I guess it doesn't hurt to have a plan b to colonize other places for when or if we totally destroy our own.