50 years ago today...

Guard Dad

Guard Dad

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...Apollo 11 lifted of for the historic mission of putting man on the moon.

I'm still amazed at what we accomplished, given the technology we had at the time. Just think what this country could do now if we were united and working together toward common goals, instead of divided and fighting with each other over party politics.

Some pictures to reminisce. I was but a child, yet I remember sitting in front of the TV, absolutely fascinated over the images being transmitted from the moon.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/apollo-11-mission-moon
 
What was really amazing about it was the fact we started out on the whole space thing way behind the Russians. It didn't take us long at all to pass them.
 
What amazes me was the risk that these guys were willing to take.

They knew that there was often NO backup. They couldn't practice a LEM descent as it wouldn't fly on earth in 1G. If the LEM ascent engine didn't fire, if they couldn't dock back with the command module, they would have to be left for dead.

Can you imagine what went on in Collin's head in the command module while they were down there. How hard would it be to give up on them and fire the engine to return knowing you were leaving your friends down there?

I was watching a History Channel show on the mission night before last. I didn't know that they had an issue with the docking mechanism in moon orbit that made them think they might not get the LEM connected back up for a while.

Amazing stuff.
 
People will believe there are aliens in Area 51, but won't believe the moon missions.

Scotty, beam me up, there's no intelligent life here.
 
I have watched quite a few programs surrounding space program over the last couple of weeks. All of these guys Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were very good pilots Top Guns if you will. The two most impressive examples of how good these guys were in my opinion happened on 11 and 13. Although "Hollywoodized" Commander Lovell adjusting the entry angle of a very damaged capsule on 13 was masterful. The second involves the moon landing of Apollo 11 that we are celebrating this week. The LEM was on final decent when the computer overloaded and wanted to abort the landing. A quick decision forced Commander Armstrong to take "manual control". Keep in mind the LEM had the flight characteristics of a rock attached to a bottle rocket. No control surfaces, all thrust controlled. Commander Armstrong had already cheated death when he had to eject from the training LEM leading up to the mission. Commander Armstrong took over the LEM manually descending and flying a half mile from the original landing site to find a suitable surface to land on. By most estimates he had 20 seconds of usable fuel left when he touched down. Flying a rock on a moon where no one had ever flown anything. Outstanding.
 
At 6 1/2 years old, I was just old enough to remember where I was for the first landing.

We were spending part of summer vacation with my Grandparents in Orlando. My Grandfather was glued to the TV. My brother and I got somewhat loud and I remember my Grandfather yelling at me something like "This is incredible and I may not live to see another, play somewhere else!" He died in 1972.

For him it must have been incredible. It's hard to believe when I was born it was only 5 years since the first satellite was launched.

For my Grandfather, who for years went back and forth to Aruba where he worked by ship, watched airplanes become a major mode of travel, saw the first man go to space, to see a man go to the moon, often considered forever out of reach, it must have been amazing.

Today's kids don't realize just how limiting the world was back then.
 
honeybunny said:
"On this 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, let us resolve to reignite the spirit of those
pioneering astronauts by driving a Corvette to a piano bar and winking at cocktail waitresses."

- David Burge
Click to expand...
The local Chevy dealer in Melbourne gave a Corvette to every Mercury and Apollo astronaut every year. It paid off in spades, because every engineer and technician on the cape wanted one too, and these guys had tons of money. That was mostly because they rarely crawled out the gate and went home.

Burge isn't wrong.
 
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