|
|
Post by number13 on Jul 21, 2019 12:22:41 GMT
50 years ago today, Dad woke me as promised in the middle of the night (just before 4am in the UK as it turns out) and we all went to sit in front of our (B&W of course) television.
Rather scarily  , I must be one of the youngest people who can distinctly remember being there to see Neil Armstrong's 'one small step'. (I was 5 !)
Any memory of the actual event is of course now buried under so many repeat viewings of that famous moment over the decades. But the memory of us there in the living room watching something amazing taking place far, far away on the moon is very clear.
It didn't make me an astronaut or even a professional scientist, but it did give me a life-long fascination with all things 'space' and science.
The older I get, the more amazing it seems that they did what they did, with the technology they had, thanks to the genius and dedication of thousands of people in the space programme
- and the skill, brilliance and old-fashioned heroism of the few who did the incredible thing: the men who went to the moon.
(Any more 'Apollo' memories? They must be a few of us on here from 'the Apollo generation'! Or what's your newer first 'space' memory, if you have one?)
|
|
|
|
Post by Ela on Jul 21, 2019 18:18:48 GMT
My friend says he remembers watching it when he was 2 years old. I was older when it happened.  |
|
|
|
Post by Ela on Jul 21, 2019 18:25:49 GMT
Also, in case you missed it, the Google Doodle celebrating the moon landing. There's a video about how they made the doodle. The actual video I saw on the Google doodle when I clicked on it yesterday is this: |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2019 4:37:46 GMT
Not a member of the Apollo family, unfortunately, but I do remember the first colour images of Mars from Spirit and later Opportunity. It was a 3D panoramic view where you could turn the mouse left or right and have a gander at the horizon. Not sure if it's my earliest memory of interplanetary exploration, but it's definitely the most distinctive. Brave little rovers with phenomenal personality and a testament to the ingenuity of its human caretakers back home. Singing the first human tune on a faraway world in our solar system. Perhaps providing the first hints that Mars wasn't quite as alien as we'd always thought it to be. Super excited by what I've heard of Dragonfly's intended probe launch to Titan and the Artemis mission to revisit the Moon. If all goes to plan, these next couple decades could be something rather special indeed. |
|
|
|
Post by number13 on Jul 22, 2019 9:25:25 GMT
Not a member of the Apollo family, unfortunately, but I do remember the first colour images of Mars from Spirit and later Opportunity. It was a 3D panoramic view where you could turn the mouse left or right and have a gander at the horizon. Not sure if it's my earliest memory of interplanetary exploration, but it's definitely the most distinctive. Brave little rovers with phenomenal personality and a testament to the ingenuity of its human caretakers back home. Singing the first human tune on a faraway world in our solar system. Perhaps providing the first hints that Mars wasn't quite as alien as we'd always thought it to be. Super excited by what I've heard of Dragonfly's intended probe launch to Titan and the Artemis mission to revisit the Moon. If all goes to plan, these next couple decades could be something rather special indeed. Dragonfly will be amazing - I was fascinated by the Huygens parachute probe to Titan, but to be able to actually fly through the skies of another world will be astonishing! And we'll be able to 'be' there in VR I expect.
Spirit and Opportunity were remarkable and the first major missions of 'the broadband age', where we could all access the wealth of data. For contrast: back in 1976 when the Vikings landed on Mars ('a space helmet for a Martian cow?' no not those Vikings ), Carl Sagan got photographic prints making up the 360° view, and sticky tape, and constructed a cylindrical panorama he could then look at from the inside to experience the landing sites more fully. Ingenious, and typical that it was him who took the trouble to do it, to try to experience being there - he's one of my science heroes.
And by 2003 we could all sit on Mars and 'be there', at our desks. Now, VR helmet views. Will I live to enter the holodeck? 
As for Artemis - frankly I think I'm more likely to live long enough to enter a real holodeck than to see people back on the moon by 2024 - I've been hearing these sort of 'any time now' mission statements since about 1972 I think!  Hope I'm wrong, it would be an exciting, open-ended way to return to the moon.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2019 13:05:40 GMT
Not a member of the Apollo family, unfortunately, but I do remember the first colour images of Mars from Spirit and later Opportunity. It was a 3D panoramic view where you could turn the mouse left or right and have a gander at the horizon. Not sure if it's my earliest memory of interplanetary exploration, but it's definitely the most distinctive. Brave little rovers with phenomenal personality and a testament to the ingenuity of its human caretakers back home. Singing the first human tune on a faraway world in our solar system. Perhaps providing the first hints that Mars wasn't quite as alien as we'd always thought it to be. Super excited by what I've heard of Dragonfly's intended probe launch to Titan and the Artemis mission to revisit the Moon. If all goes to plan, these next couple decades could be something rather special indeed. Dragonfly will be amazing - I was fascinated by the Huygens parachute probe to Titan, but to be able to actually fly through the skies of another world will be astonishing! And we'll be able to 'be' there in VR I expect.
Spirit and Opportunity were remarkable and the first major missions of 'the broadband age', where we could all access the wealth of data. For contrast: back in 1976 when the Vikings landed on Mars ('a space helmet for a Martian cow?' no not those Vikings ), Carl Sagan got photographic prints making up the 360° view, and sticky tape, and constructed a cylindrical panorama he could then look at from the inside to experience the landing sites more fully. Ingenious, and typical that it was him who took the trouble to do it, to try to experience being there - he's one of my science heroes. And by 2003 we could all sit on Mars and 'be there', at our desks. Now, VR helmet views. Will I live to enter the holodeck? As for Artemis - frankly I think I'm more likely to live long enough to enter a real holodeck than to see people back on the moon by 2024 - I've been hearing these sort of 'any time now' mission statements since about 1972 I think! Hope I'm wrong, it would be an exciting, open-ended way to return to the moon.
Oh, technology's moving at such a pace that we may yet live to see those projected Walks from the Earth of The Doomsday Weapon. As for Artemis, all we need is another space agency -- commercial or national -- vow to do exactly the same thing and it'll be on for young and old. God, could you imagine if they livestreamed the Titan flyby? Come to think of it... It's almost a guarantee they'll try, isn't it? Or its closest equivalent by then. The one thing I'm surprised they haven't done yet with the advances in 3D printing and VR hardware is to build a Georoom here on Earth. Something where you'd be able to feel the terrain beneath your feet as you wandered through the moonscape. The next step from Sagan's own home cyclorama. |
|
, I must be one of the youngest people who can distinctly remember being there to see Neil Armstrong's 'one small step'. (I was 5 !)
