Moon Landing Day!!

[Chuckanut]

A Happy Moon Landing Day to all.

55 years ago today humans first walked on the moon. For those of us who witnessed it via the miracle of televisions it was quite a story. They did it!

 

[Car-Guy]

Remember it well.

 

[braumeister]

Those of us who watched it live on TV will never forget it.

 

[cbo111]

I was about 8 years old and vaguely recall sitting on the living room floor very close to the tv. It seemed to take forever for that door to open and an astronaut to walk out.

 

[audreyh1]

Those of us who watched it live on TV will never forget it.

+1!

 

[Alan]

Those of us who watched it live on TV will never forget it.

For sure. I was age 14 and remember it very clearly

 

[Qs Laptop]

Remember it well. My family were visiting people out in the country that day. As the planned moon landing time approached I kept looking at my mom hoping she would say something along the lines of, "maybe we should turn on the TV" to our hosts. I was also dubiously looking at their smallish TV with rabbit ears wondering if they could get reception at their farm all the while knowing we had a 26" console TV with outdoor roof mounted antenna and perfect reception.

I was going to miss the moon landing!

But then about 15 minutes before it was to happen they turned on the TV. The TV got decent reception and I was able to see history made.

When we got home my parents let me stay up into the wee hours of the night and watch the moon walk.

 

[pacergal]

Those of us who watched it live on TV will never forget it.

Absolutely!

 

[foxcreek9]

Reminded me of this classic

NASA Announces All-Female Remake Of Staged Moon Landings

HOUSTON, TX—As a tribute to the 50th anniversary of its fake moon landing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced a reboot of the staged event that fooled billions worldwide, only this time featuring an all-female crew.

babylonbee.com

 

[audreyh1]

For sure. I was age 14 and remember it very clearly

I was just shy of 10 and remember it very clearly. The black and white slightly grainy video.

 

[mf15]

Was on the Cape for the launch. Can't imagine there are too many of us left, I was 20 a the time.
Uncle worked there. Have an 8mm movie,I should get it digitized.

 

[thod]

I was about 4 months away from being born. So it has always been just history to me. Just pictures on TV or when looking at our photo albums, pictures my mother took of the black and white TV.

 

[Midpack]

Those of us who watched it live on TV will never forget it.

+2. Was hard to believe at the time.

 

[REWahoo]

I was a groomsman at a friend's wedding. The ceremony was in the afternoon and many in attendance, including me, gave the bride and groom a hard time about scheduling their wedding right in the middle of the biggest event of our lifetime!

 

[Christine]

Was only 3 years old.

But my dad talked about watching this event several times. And always with awe in his voice.

If we go back again I'll be watching!

 

[braumeister]

I was driving when they were about to land, and pulled into a fast food place's parking lot so I could listen to it on the car radio. "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." That sent chills down my spine and it still does when I think about it.

Later that evening, about half a dozen friends gathered at one of our houses and we waited for the big moment. Clustered around the TV, we watched as that incredible first step was taken.

Much to my surprise, many years later I found myself working with both of Neil Armstrong's sons for several years. Both remarkable people in their own right.

 

[MC Rider]

Was 10 yo and they brought a TV to the summer camp where they never had TV.
Watched it in the chapel. One small step for a man...........

 

[Car-Guy]

I was just shy of 10 and remember it very clearly. The black and white slightly grainy video.

It's been a minute, but IIRC one of the reasons the video "we saw" was so grainy was the video stream sent back from the moon was incompatible with the broadcast networks of the day. Soooo, they used a network camera to take a video of the monitor that was receiving the video feed from the moon and sent it over the terrestrial broadcast network of the day. Add to that all the analog relays to get it to the networks of the time and you get a lot of noise and distortion. A little more complicated than that but that's basically what I recall happening.

 

[pjm-7]

Remember the day on the grainy black and white TV. My dad had the opportunity to do some consulting work with Neil Armstrong. Dad said was just another unassuming engineering professor.

 

[CaptTom]

Was 10 yo and they brought a TV to the summer camp where they never had TV.
Watched it in the chapel. One small step for a man...........

One of those moments everyone alive remembers where they were.

Anyway, that "One small step..." thing kinda irked me. We all heard it clear as a bell. He left out the "a" in "a man." No big deal. Who among us could have recited their lines perfectly under those circumstances? But there was a some confusion until they started reporting on what he was supposed to say. Ohhh. "for a man." I get it now!

But some pretended that's what he did say. Eventually the media started talking more about it. Some were still trying to stick to the original story, suggesting maybe it was just a momentary blip of static or something. No. We all heard it. The cadence wasn't interrupted.

Such a trivial thing. It doesn't matter at all. But somehow trying to hide it, then turning it into a controversy, blew it way out of proportion.

 

[Ronstar]

I watched it with my grandfather. I was amazed by the landing, wanting to be an astronaut. My grandfather was amazed, having been around since the Wright brothers first flight. Flight made a lot of progress in in 66 years.

 

[audreyh1]

It's been a minute, but IIRC one of the reasons the video "we saw" was so grainy was the video stream sent back from the moon was incompatible with the broadcast networks of the day. Soooo, they used a network camera to take a video of the monitor that was receiving the video feed from the moon and sent it over the terrestrial broadcast network of the day. Add to that all the analog relays to get it to the networks of the time and you get a lot of noise and distortion. A little more complicated than that but that's basically what I recall happening.

Reception at my aunts house out in the country wasn’t that great either.

 

[Car-Guy]

Here's the details of why the video was so grainy. Pretty much as I remembered and summarized in post #18 above.

Apollo 11 missing tapes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Excerpt:

Therefore, Apollo 11's moonwalk video was transmitted from the Apollo TV camera in a monochrome SSTV format at 10 frames per second (fps) with 320 lines of resolution, progressively scanned.[6] These SSTV signals were received by radio telescopes at Parkes Observatory in Australia, the Goldstone tracking station in California, and Honeysuckle Creek tracking station, also in Australia.[7] The camera's video format was incompatible with existing NTSC, PAL, and SECAM broadcast television standards. It needed to be converted before it could be shown on broadcast television networks. This live conversion was crude, essentially using a video camera pointing at a high-quality 10-inch (25 cm) TV monitor.

 

[Chuckanut]

What amazed me when I taught middle schoolers is how many thought Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong were also the first man in space. I guess Buzz Aldrin didn't make the list. Apparently, they thought NASA built one big moon rocket, 3,2,1, BLAST OFF! and there they went, right to the moon with no need to test anything in space itself.

Projects Mercury and Gemini were a mystery to them. Russians in space? They were a big aghast when I told them the first man in space was Yuri Gagarin.

 

[DrRoy]

I was glued to the TV for the whole mission, and generally so for all the Apollo flights. We would normally have been at the family cottage (with no TV) but I insisted that we stay home in July and we did.
From Apollo 8, my favorite signed photo:
.