40th anniversary of moon landing - what words do you recall?

[Bluenose]

It seems that most people, or at least the media anyway, seems to recall Nail Armstrong's words as he stepped of the lander onto the moon's surface.  However, I have always been more thrilled by the first words spoken after the Eagle landed.  What do the siblings think?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Had I been alive and conscious at the time of the landing I would have asked: Where are the Russians?  

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

While it is true that I was watching live, when those chilling words "The Eagle has landed" were broadcast over scratchy connections, I better recall the words uttered as Niel jumped that last 3 feet to the moon's surface.

It was not until many *many* years later how significant the "...has landed" sequence really was; and that the surface was ever so much more dangerous (to land on) than we imagined at the time.  NASA, for good or ill, censored those nail-biting details until after the program was long canceled.

To wit:  the lander only had a few seconds of fuel to spare before crash, when Armstrong finally put it down softly.   The ground controllers knew, Armstrong knew, 'Buzz' Aldrin knew.  Heck, even Michael Collins up in orbit knew how close things really were.   Only the unsuspecting public was kept in the dark.

I suppose they were afraid of the reactions, but once they landed successfully, they could've let us in on just how narrow the window really had been.

Oh well.   Its still etched into my mind.

As is the previous mission that didn't land, but went around the moon only.  Those first radio contact after the long radio silence were nearly as heart-chilling.   Sadly?  I do not recall what the actual words were, just that after the long pins-and-needles silence it was dramatic. 

As a side-note?  Those Apollo missions caused my school to break one of it's rules:  an actual TV was brought into library/cafeteria and was on as long as the mission was being broadcast....

[Swatopluk]

Twas before my time (and there has never been a TV in the house anyway).
The words I always associate first with the Apollo program is from Apollo 13, usually quoted as "Houston, we have a problem.".
That not as a sign that Apollo was a problem but how the astronauts were capable of this extreme understatement under the conditions.
As far as the moon landing itself was concerned, it was the "One small step..."

[Griffin NoName]

Can't remember exact quote, but "Every part that makes up this rocket went to the cheapest bidder".

I wasn't in awe of landing on the moon; I saw it as just a technical issue rather than an amazing thing.

[anthrobabe]

We've landed-- this little craft of tin foil and wires and people has landed. We have landed something- alive and well- in one piece and functional on another 'world'-- we are here.
Hell yeah!
Eagle has landed.

I do not remember the live event- I was 6 months old- but I was propped up 'watching' it with my dad and mom. I vividly remember the first time I saw it on video/film-- at school- 4th grade-- i've been a space junkie ever since.

You know that Neil Armstrong was misquoted because of static on the one small step line- one of the biggest quotes in human history and the article 'a' got missed and changed it completely.
He has stated that he in fact said - "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" and that because of static the 'a' was missed. Snopes

other quotes: "I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful" NA

this one might bet me most of all
"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." NA

I think that still one of my greatest heros is Chuck Yeager-- at the age of 24 the man flew faster than sound for the very first time, the first time a human had ever done so- with 2 broken ribs because he'd fallen off his horse and didn't tell anyone so they wouldn't pull him off- yep a real cowboy- as a feminist I am often puzzled why some of my greatest heos are these go get 'em rocket riders. And I'm not forgetting Valentina Tereshkova, Judith Resnick, Peggy Whitson,
Shannon Lucid, Stephaine Wilson, Kalpana Chawla-etc  ever-- it's these jet jockies that captured my imagination. I wish Chuck Yeager had gotten chosen for the astronaut program.


Remember Alan Shepherd- the first american in space and the second human in space- remember this-- he had to wait a very long time on the launch pad- with no relief facilities- he had drunk lots of coffee that morning- remember what happend? he was given permission to relieve himself in his suit- so the 2nd human in space went there with wet britches.

That's what is cool- we are specks- we aren't gods- we are human beings and we are pretty cool after all.

[Swatopluk]

Slight qualification: Yeager was the first person proven to have broken the sound barrier (and lived).
There were a few cases in WW2 where it is possible that it was done (but nobody put the pilots back together afterwards to ask).

True that- true that.
In fact people joked with him that they hoped his life insurance was all in good order.
He was the first official record of it and it was planned.
Probably if anyone went there first it was not planned and like you said- pilots in pieces can't tell the tale.

[Pachyderm]

IIRC, it wasn't planned, not for that flight anyway. Yeager just opened the taps anyway, as it felt right.

"I wish Chuck Yeager had gotten chosen for the astronaut program."

He did, in a way.

He was the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, where astronauts are trained. The problem was he was just too good a test pilot, so they wanted him to instruct, not be a student, even a student astronaut...

[Opsa]

I remember the night they first landed on the moon. I spent the night at a friend's house and we all stayed up late to see it. Being a kid at the time, I didn't realize how very special it was until the broadcast began showing people all over the world watching the landing and looking thrilled. (I recall people in Japan, and the middle east, but alas- not the Soviet Union!)

For about an hour that night, we seemed to be united as the people of Earth.

[Swatopluk]

Yeager also saw The Sound Barrier* in the cinema and had to correct the visitors that it was (for once) the Americans, not the British that did it** (unlike the numerous Hollywood examples that present British achievements as their own). Iirc he did not tell them that it had been him.

*Actually a fine movie
**unless it was (as has been suspected) the final action of a Spitfire pilot unable to get out of a dive or an (also doomed) German test pilot with a rocket interceptor. The British had the lead but abandoned it (for financial reasons I think).

[Darlica]

I wasn't born then, so no memories of my own of Apollo 11 her crew and mission.

Still, I we saw a least one film about the moon landing in school and stills was present in both science and history books so "One small step for a man" is etched in to my brain anyway.


When I was 5 I was totally obsessed with space (and dinosaurs but that's another story) I was building moon bases and landers with Lego and made craters and mountains in the big sand box we still had in the garden so I would have the right kind of landscape to play in, my mum did helped a bit with the building first few times I think.

It has just dawned on me that the moon landing happened just 5 years before I was born and 10 years before I had my big Astronaut period... Yes, I did know it was in 1969 but I've never sort of connected the dots and thought about it. I guess it's because one lacks a perspective on time as a kid.
The 20th year anniversary of the moon landing must have drowned in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall because I don't remember that, neither do I remember the 30th year anniversary. But I know I was delivering mail, and we had a full eclipse of the sun here that summer...   

[Pachyderm]

The British had the lead but abandoned it (for financial reasons I think).


Part of the reparations after WW2 were that the Brits had to give over their research data on supersonic flight, and the US were supposed to collaborate on the project. They didn't.

[Bluenose]

It's a very long timesince I read it but i recall reading a book by a Brit test pilot who was part of a program exploring high mach flight in the post war period.  I'll see if I can dig it up.

Anyway, although no one doubts that Yeager made the first supersonic flight in level flight the Brits did quite a lot of exerimentation in late mark Griffon powered Spitfires in high altitude dives and the main problem they encountered was that the aircraft broke up for unexplained reasons - and they lost a few pilots - as the aircraft approached Mach 1.  There was a section recorded in the book where one of the pilots theorised that the problem was control reversal and he proved the point in a subsequent flight.  It must have been a brave man to push the controls in the "wrong" direction when he was flying almost directly at the ground at around the speed of sound.  Yet he was subsequently proven correct.  The issue was that with a conventionally designed aircraft the shock wave caused by the control surfaces - resulted in exactly the opposite effect of that in sub-sonic flight.  It was the reason for the term "sound barrier" and aircraft designed for trans-sonic and supersonic flight have to be designed in a particular way to avoid this effect.  The most common approach is the long thin fuselage and swept back wings, designed to remain within the shock wave of the aircraft at its maximum design Mach no.  Anyway the point of all this was that despite the US claims and Yeager's undoubted conrtribution, it was a British pilot who first flew an aircraft in an official test flight beyond the speed of sound, albeit in a dive.  In addition there was an unnofficial flight by a German pilot during WWII, again in a dive,but this was not officially recorded.  Also the German axial flow jet engine proved ultimately to be superior to the British centrifugal design and has become the design used by virtually every production jet engine, certainly since the 1950s.

Like British development in aircraft carrier design - the angled flight deck, the mirror landing aid and the steam catapult - although the Brits were often first, it was the Yanks that capitalised on the new ideas and developments and brought them to their ultimate fruition.  They made the first production supersonic aircraft and hold most of the airspeed records.  But these successes were built upon technologies developed in Britain and Germany.

Those who remember the movie Ice Station Zebra may recall a line early where David Jones (a Brit) is talking tothe US submarine commander about the satellite they are trying to recover: "The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists."   And let us not forget that it was the American's German scientists that put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

[anthrobabe]

Ok-- a bit off topic for a moment but

in reply number 6 above-- I had quoted Swato and then put my reply below his quote-- but it does not appear that way-- it appears as if I have modified his words and that is an extreme no-no that I do not engage in.
Anyone see what I am doing incorrectly?
I'm clicking quote- then adding my babbling under the quote but it seems that if I post it and then go back in to correct my spelling or edit my words in anyway it looks as if I have edited a sibling post and I would never do that!

Griffin had noticed this before- and conincidently (or not) it was a quote from Swato- that appeared to have been edited by me but really and truly wasn't.

[Aggie]

Are you sure you're clicking "Quote"?  The modify button is directly adjacent.

[Pachyderm]

Bluenose, I think the man you refer to may well be Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown, who has logged more types of aircraft flown than anyone, and still holds the world record for carrier landings.

[Opsa]

WINKLE!!!!

You said "winkle". Heh-heh.

[Swatopluk]

In all fairness, there was work in the US on a promising jet engine before the Germans began to heavily invest in the idea.  If that had not been put on the backburner the Me-262 might have faced a superior US jet fighter instead of a just slightly inferior piston engine one (Mustang with British* engine).
The German jet engines were superior in design to the British but were severely impeded by the need to use cheap available resources giving them a service life of a just a few hours.

*the Brits also turned the Sherman into a tank of actual value by putting a suitable gun on it (Sherman Firefly)

[pieces o nine]

I watched it live and what passed for replays on subsequent news days. My little brother arranged a stack of yardsticks into the outlines of a Saturn V rocket on the living room floor, and spent several days playing in the 'capsule' area.

The other words I recall in association with this event are from JFK's "We Choose to Go to the Moon" speech, because my brother was so jazzed by the event he purchased a 45 rpm* intersplicing some of those mission broadcasts with The Speech. To get further into the mood, he listened to The Speech several times and then carefully transcribed it in his Big Chief tablet as follows:

...
But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask.

Why climb the highest mountain?
....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* For ye younguns:

"45 RPM" was an auncient, Dark Ages technology whereby a single audioo selection of about 3-5 minutes was recorded onto, and played back from, a shiny black plastic disk with a "phonograph" "needle"...

[beagle]

> Something else - please specifiy

"You can stay up late"

(I was 9).  Like I remember Churchill's funeral in 1965 because I was given a new toy to keep me quiet.  Such is History, a question of perspective...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

"45 RPM" was an auncient, Dark Ages technology whereby a single audioo selection of about 3-5 minutes was recorded onto, and played back from, a shiny black plastic disk with a "phonograph" "needle"...

My gram-pa had some of those but more 78 RPM ones (a darker age tech). BTW he considered the task impossible until that Armstrong guy showed up in the surface while my dad and uncle listened to the Beatles to annoy him.