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

[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.