An appreciation

[TooFastTim]

Just spare a thought for those brave men and the people who stood behind them, who 40 years ago today risked their lives so that we could claim to have travelled to other worlds.

Thanks Neil, Buzz, Pete, Rusty, Jim and all of you.

[211kawasaki]

yes and where were you when it was all going on??

For me it was Mrs Organ's 6th class room (yes that was her name!) at Lindfield East public school, we all sat there glued to a crappy B/W TV. I remember it like yesterday.

211

[TooFastTim]

I was a bit young to take it all in (see Firkos 1969 post) but I caught up with a vengence by '72. By that time I was watching moonshots like a hawk, plotting their landing postitions in an atlas of the moon I'd received as a birthday pressie, listening to the radio and watching TV. But by that time it was for, most people a bit passe. Shame really.

First time I saw the moon on a colour TV I was impressed at how green it was. Of course colour TVs were in their infancy and it was the picture that was green, not the moon.

[mx250]

'We all live in a pink class room, a pink class room, a pink class room. And our friends are all aboard.....'(sung to the the tune of the Beatles 'Yellow Submarine').

Yes I was in 'the pink class room' of PMC Parramatta as part of the overweight, Quik Ez addicted, Mr Pediford's 4th form science class. There was one 17 ich B&W TV, brought in at incredible expense and great care, in front of which sat 30 or so kids, all dazed and confused, but very pleased to be avoiding another round of Mr Pedifords questioning of the periodic tables .  The front two or three had a reasonable good view of the grainy picture but were still having trouble interpreting what they saw. I was about 10 deep so I had no hope.

Not that I was that interested, despite rhetorical sermons from the Principle and Mr Pediford about Historical moments, I was more interested in thumping Charlie Misfid for letting go with one of his woggy, garlicy farts in confined spaces and generally relieving my discomfort and boredom with visions of Stephine McGrath in wet bra and panties down by the river .

[firko]

I was a third year Railway aprentice boilermaker at the Eveleigh Loco shop fitting a new piece of equipment. The brickies had just concreted a new plynth which was a magnet to us young blokes. We all wrote our dedication to the moon landing in the wet concrete and signed it. Forty years later that plynth is still there despite the boiler shop now being the set for Master Chef Australia!

Unfortunately As much as I admired the achievement at the time and truly appreciate the science and engineering breakthroughs needed to achieve the landing, I'm now one of those neighsayers who doesn't get it. With so many wrongs to solve on this planet, I now find the space race just a bit of American "My cock is bigger than yours" posing that achieves little in the grand plan for us Earthlings. I feel it's a power pose thing.

[TooFastTim]

Firko, the sad thing is that no matter how much money you throw at the poor there will still be poor people. The spin-offs from Apollo have (IMO) infinitely enriched our lives. It's human nature to explore, be it at a cosmological level or a microscopic level. The benefits are there for all will use them.

[motomaniac]

I was in the lounge at home watching it all - it took for bloody ever to actually happen but I didn't complain as our school had let us all out early specifically to go home and watch it.Pretty Cool.

[TooFastTim]

"My cock is bigger than yours"

Well that goes without saying 

[AjayVMX]

I for one find the Moon Landings very inspiring due to the sheer guts that it took for all involved to achieve the goal set by JFK.  Sure there is an element of male appendige envy in it, but there is no doubt whatsoever that a great deal of good came from the acceleration of the space programmes by having a tangible goal to achieve.

And where would we all be without Velcro?   

[All Things 414]

And where would we all be without Velcro?   

Some of us would have to take our underwear off the old fashioned way.......

[Curly3]

With all their might the U.S. managed to get a man on the moon,
But could never get a man on Martina Navratalova.

[oldfart]

As a 12 Y/O  I didn't get it then and still don't get it today, The USA has claimed it as thiers ...But is it ?   

[TooFastTim]

Just had me tea so I'm a bit fresher.

Firko, regarding your statement: "just a bit of American "My cock is bigger than yours". There's some truth in it. It was a heady time where the competition between two ideologies to prove which was superior was intense. The space race was the ultimate manifestation of that competition (well you could include the nuclear arms race which was, IMO, obsene). You must also remember that while America was pursuing the moon LBJ rolled out the biggest welfare check in history, so it sort of ameliorates (I hope I've spelled that right) the self-indulgance of the Apollo project.

Also, if it weren't for the predesessors to the apollo project we'd probably be living in thatched hovel somewhere in england being beaten and taxed to death by the local squire, for apollos predesessors were people like Magallen, da Gama, Columbus and even Cook, not forgetting their financial backers.

[TooFastTim]

As a 12 Y/O  I didn't get it then and still don't get it today, The USA has claimed it as thiers ...But is it ?   

Well, you could say it was bankrolled by the UK which was crappiing off paying back lend-lease.