It was fifty years ago today...

HAL9000

https://youtu.be/RMINSD7MmT4

Even now I still, very clearly, remember watching this. Sure I didn’t realise the significance though.

Sassafras

Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.

ArchtopDave

I remember watching it all happening as well. I was laid up at home recovering from glandular fever.

Sassafras

If you look carefully you can occasionally see the boom mic come into shot.

VimFuego

lol like boom mics are real. Waaaaake up man. 

tony99

so they need a huge high powered thrust rocket to get there but then they can return to earth using this little farty pod thing yeah? oh right ok

JezWynd

tony99 said:

so they need a huge high powered thrust rocket to get there but then they can return to earth using this little farty pod thing yeah? oh right ok

Less gravity on moon. Lander only takes them to the return vehicle that’s orbiting the moon. I’m guessing you know this. 

equalsql

  Brilliant stuff. I remember seeing it on TV when I was 10 and being enthralled by the whole experience. I even wrote a letter to NASA at the time asking for more information about them and they posted me a large booklet detailing their space programs. I treasured that for years.

Kilgore

It only took 43 years from Goddard's first liquid fuelled rocket to Apollo 11. What also has to be acknowledged is the  role of German WW2 scientists and engineers who developed the V1 and V2.

Werner Von Braun's primary interest in rockets was for space travel. After the first V2 landed on London he is quoted as saying, "The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet" 

RandallFlagg

The lunar module descent in full, this is gripping stuff:

darthed1981

Stunning technical and human achievement.

Let's get to Mars next (much, much harder I know, before everyone chimes in).

I have heard that the mission involves spending two years isolated away from home, so far all applicants are married...

Grumpyrocker

If we hadn't spent 20 years messing around with the mistake that was the Space Shuttle we could have gone to Mars by now.

There's a brilliant what-if sci-fi novel by Stephen Baxter called Voyage which tells the alternate history story from the end of Apollo where the decision was made to go to Mars instead of building the shuttle. It's a fascinating look at what might have been.

guitars4you

I was 9 - I recall we had to sit in the school hall on the floor - The headteacher brought in a small black and white telly and put it on the stage - So I have clear memory of this part  - But the telly would be to small to actually see anything especially from a few yards away - So I have a memory of the event - But I dare say all my images of the event are based on pics and news clips that we've all seen over the years

I vaguely recall a big fuss about Apollo 8 and later 13

JezWynd

Grumpyrocker said:

If we hadn't spent 20 years messing around with the mistake that was the Space Shuttle we could have gone to Mars by now.

Wasn't the Space Shuttle designed to give easy access to the Space Station? A Space Station seems like a sensible first step to interplanetary travel. Perhaps with hindsight going straight to Mars by rocket would have been a good idea but the at the time the Space Station seemed like a logical progression and must have taught us a lot about the long term issues of living in space.

Kilgore

Landing on Mars isn't the difficult bit. Getting off is the problem.

Winny_Pooh

Jalapeno

I recall watching the moon walk on a big B&W telly in school. Total fan !!!!!!

Apollo 13 was brilliant "jazz" spacefaring - read Jim Lovell's book and watch Ron Howard's adaptation (made without any help or footage from NASA).

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

fandango

Grumpyrocker said:

If we hadn't spent 20 years messing around with the mistake that was the Space Shuttle we could have gone to Mars by now.

Regardless of whether the Space Shuttle was a "mistake", I think we could all agree NASA learnt bucket loads from having persevered with it.

fandango

Kilgore said:

Landing on Mars isn't the difficult bit. Getting off is the problem.

Matt Damon's already been there and done that. 

darthed1981

Jalapeno said:

I recall watching the moon walk on a big B&W telly in school. Total fan !!!!!!

Apollo 13 was brilliant "jazz" spacefaring - read Jim Lovell's book and watch Ron Howard's adaptation (made without any help or footage from NASA).

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

Well we HAVE, especially in computer technology, medicine has advanced a lot.

The problem is, as it is with many things, we are greedy, greedy people, and nobody wants to feel like they are PAYING for a mission to Mars.  It all comes down to money, sadly.

A trip to Mars would probably cost a trillion dollars and unite the world, at a time when the US are probably seriously considering spending a trillion dollars plus thousands of lives on war with Iran.

Sigh...

boogieman

I can remember staying up late to watch the moon landing. I’d somehow thought they would get straight out of the LEM and walk on the moon so was a bit disappointed when it was just lots of studio talk and no pictures. My memory of Neil Armstrong actually doing the first moonwalk was how disappointingly dull and grainy the pictures were. Looking back, I obviously wasn’t an easily pleased child.