It was fifty years ago today...

monkey42 · July 2019

It was a year before I was born. What time (UK) did Neil set foot on the moon?

monkey42 · July 2019

monkey42 said:

It was a year before I was born. What time (UK) did Neil set foot on the moon?

..google says 3.53 am and yet I note some people were able to see it at school etc.

tony99 · July 2019

monkey42 said:

monkey42 said:

It was a year before I was born. What time (UK) did Neil set foot on the moon?

..google says 3.53 am and yet I note some people were able to see it at school etc.

Up until 1974 all british schools were boarding schools

(well if everyone else is making stuff up)

HAL9000 · July 2019

monkey42 said:

monkey42 said:

It was a year before I was born. What time (UK) did Neil set foot on the moon?

..google says 3.53 am and yet I note some people were able to see it at school etc.

My memory is of being up in the early hours to watch it. However, so many have mentioned watching it at school that I was starting to doubt myself.

shrinkwrap · July 2019

Yes, It was the landing I saw at school..apparently 8 in the evening (just after being beaten by the headmaster for forgetting the name of the Greek sun god).

jdgm · July 2019

20 July 1969 was a Sunday. They landed in the daytime GMT (IIRC). I was 15.

That night I went to see a new band called Free; in the intermission it was announced that man had just landed on the Moon.

TimmyO · July 2019

I watched First Men today - it seemed appropriate. It was really good.

57Deluxe · July 2019

It may be Moon50 fever, but I still look at these pics and think - Toddler in a sandpit!

darthed1981 · July 2019

57Deluxe said:

It may be Moon50 fever, but I still look at these pics and think - Toddler in a sandpit!

Almost certainly what any space faring aliens think when looking at how we behave on Earth.

Jalapeno · July 2019

monkey42 said:

monkey42 said:

It was a year before I was born. What time (UK) did Neil set foot on the moon?

..google says 3.53 am and yet I note some people were able to see it at school etc.

They didn't land with the door ajar and leap out straightaway. It took a few hours to shutdown, run checks, suit up, depressurise the LM etc. I vaguely recall they were on the surface at 8am or so ...

ICBM · July 2019

Wikipedia says the landing was at 20:17 UTC (9.17pm BST) and Armstrong stepped onto the Moon at 02:56 UTC (3.56am BST), so anyone in the UK who saw it in daytime was watching a recording.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Jalapeno · July 2019

ICBM said:

Wikipedia says the landing was at 20:17 UTC (9.17pm BST) and Armstrong stepped onto the Moon at 02:56 UTC (3.56am BST), so anyone in the UK who saw it in daytime was watching a recording.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Or live - they were still walking around at breakfast time. I don't remember seeing the One Small Step moment live - just the two of them bouncing around. (I got to school really early most days)

stickyfiddle · July 2019

I don't buy the "no advances in space travel" thing.

A couple of years ago we got super-high resolution photos of friggin Pluto, we have rovers on Mars sending back amazing photography and science pretty much constantly, and last week the Japanese landed a probe on a comet, extracted some of that comet, and will have it back here on Earth within 18 months. Those don't involve spacemen doing brave things but every one is an astonishing achievement.

Then you've got Juno and Cassini doing "easy" stuff around Jupiter and Saturn...

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/21/17353110/jupiter-photos-juno-high-res-clouds-great-red-spot

Image: https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-06/40884624953_e786802e25_z1.jpg

Image: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/J85lBLditBHKUEguiZh8rPEmWqg=/0x0:3805x1288/1200x675/filters:focal(1599x340:2207x948)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59799667/pia21974.0.jpg

Image: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MjCLCHLI2xR9vb6phHKX860b1fs=/0x0:1041x427/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1041x427):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10843205/pia21984_2000.jpg

Image: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2e7JUItRPX2xD97y93wOQiIdnmg=/0x0:1041x1382/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1041x1382):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10843209/pia21975_opt.jpg

darthed1981 · July 2019

stickyfiddle said:

I don't buy the "no advances in space travel" thing.

The original comment from jalepeno was "no giant leaps, i.e. nothing equivalent to putting Neil and Buzz on the moon, I think that's fair.

Nobody would argue nothing has been achieved or progressed in space travel period.

I think manned space flight, partly because it is so difficult, has been put on the back burner exactly for all the advances we have had.

ICBM · July 2019

darthed1981 said:

I think manned space flight, partly because it is so difficult, has been put on the back burner exactly for all the advances we have had.

It's not just the difficulty, it's the danger - as tragically shown by the Shuttle programme. If I remember rightly, each Apollo mission was given a roughly 50/50 chance, so for them to get away with six complete successes and the very brilliant save of Apollo 13 was extremely good going. Quitting when they were so far ahead was probably the wise decision, even ignoring the lack of public support for the ongoing cost.

57Deluxe · July 2019

I was around 10... I remember being woken up and sitting up with the family from around 3 am to about 6 am to watch. Proceedings were rather lacklustre and pedestrian and the step out was around 4am. Even then we sat in the dark with curtains drawn to get max contrast on the grainy B&W Rumbellows rented telly with a set-top antenna !

Image: https://newvitruvian.com/images/television-clipart-tv-antenna-8.png

Winny_Pooh · July 2019

Kilgore said:

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison?

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

I'd watch that

jdgm · July 2019

ICBM said:

Wikipedia says the landing was at 20:17 UTC (9.17pm BST) and Armstrong stepped onto the Moon at 02:56 UTC (3.56am BST), so anyone in the UK who saw it in daytime was watching a recording.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Thankyou. Definitive. You think at the time "I will never ever forget this" but of course the details get blurry after 50 years!

Nitefly · July 2019

Kilgore said:

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison?

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

@Kilgore - Kim Stanley Robinson addresses exactly these issues in his "Red Mars" and the following books in his trilogy. They're probably 30 years old now, but still worth a read.

Grumpyrocker · July 2019

Fab books, still some of the best hard-scifi about colonising another world.

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It was fifty years ago today...

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