36 Years Ago Today: Man Lands On Moon

On July 20th, 1969, the longest flight ever taken by humans arrived on the surface on the Moon. A truly amazing feat, considering how difficult it would still be today to perform such a flight despite our technological advances. It is said the average modern automobile has more computing power than Apollo 11 did. We haven't tried again since Apollo 17 in 1972.

In honor of the anniversary, Google has some fun stuff online.

Aerial photos of the moon: http://moon.google.com
Google Copernicus Center is hiring: http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

[Edited thread title...36 years, not 37. :wink:]

Wow not even a mention of it on the news, very sad. I really hope our space program gets its act together, no reason we haven't been back to the moon yet.

On my wall, I have an original poster that includes reproductions of signatures that were carried to the moon on that trip. If you've even been to the Cradle of Aviation museum, it is a copy of the one they have hanging in their reproduction of the Grumman clean room. I look at that everyday and think of all the people that made that important journey possible, and wonder where we would be without them. I could have a good argument with anyone who thinks that we shouldn't go back, and I would most likely win.

I had a lot of interest in the Space Program during the Gemini/Apollo days. I grew up in a small town about 30 miles NE of Tampa, and in good weather you could actually see the launches from my back yard once the rocket was about 75 seconds after blast off. I would always watch the launch on TV, then run outside to see it in person, a great thrill for a 5-11 year old boy in love with aviation. We had a big party at our house for the Apollo 11 landing and first moonwalk maybe two hours later, probably 50 friends and neighbors, what a thrill. For the historic flight of Apollo 13 we made the trek over to the Cape and my Mom,Dad,and I watched the blast off from a near by beach. I can still hear the roar of the mighty Saturn V and remember feeling the ground shake 8 miles a way. On the way home we made a pit stop at MCO so I could watch airplanes, We where watching an EA 727 board for JFK or LGA and just before the door closed a young CBS reporter came running for the flight after covering the launch almost missing the flight, my dad said his name was Dan Rather !
From the mid 60's thru the mid 70's my uncle worked for NASA in various functions/capacities. From Gemini to Apollo 8 he was in Mission Control in Houston, and knew every Astronaut personally. For show and tell in 4th grade during the flight of Apollo 8 I brought in photo of the crew my uncle got me. A special photo indeed with 3 special autographs. No surprise, I got and A, life was good !

Thanks for allowing me to ramble and thanks Gotham Spotter for starting this thread.
And for anyone on here the belongs to the minority in this country that believe the Moon Landing's where fake, sorry to disappoint you but
trust me, it was REAL, we really DID IT !

LGA777

I hate to say it, but I remember it well. Anne and I stayed up to watch it live on TV. I even took some pictures off the TV of that eventful day. They're black and white and pretty bad coming off the TV, but still a good memory for a triumphant time.

Art

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrummanFan

I could have a good argument with anyone who thinks that we shouldn't go back, and I would most likely win.

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Bring it. Maybe start it up on Off-Topic. :)

I'd be very interested in hearing.