The lift-off…
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It Was 40 Years Ago Today11 comments to It Was 40 Years Ago TodayLeave a Reply |
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coolest event ever. All the more stunning when you figure the laptop I’m on now is probably a billion times more powerful than the computer used to get them to the Moon.
(speaking of…I saw “Moon” the other day with Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell.
good heady sci-fi…the way it used to be, with a few nods to 2001 and Silent Running.)
If I remember correctly, the computer on the LEM, if not the command capsule, had an entire 32 KB of memory. Must have been fun to be a coder in those days.
Thanks,Floyd…in these squalid days its nice to be reminded of something miraculous.I was almost 12 years old
Yet another event I wish I was 2-4 years older so I could have experienced. Technically alive by Catholic standards, but little difficult to take in while womb-bound.
“Space race? The Russians are space pussies…haven’t even sent a man to the moon. They wanna prove something? Bring back our flag!”
SAM KINISON
Good, Eric!
I consider it one of the many tragedies of my life that my parents weren’t married until about ten years after this takeoff, but I was born in just enough time to watch the Challenger takeoff live and know that I was watching 11 people die on live TV.
Jake… that’s the consequences of having parents with bourgeois middle class values. They could’ve had you much sooner than “marriage”.
Saw this one on TV and was fortunate enough as a child to have my parents take me to NASA in Houston during one of the later Apollo missions for a tour during the mission…followed up by a coach’s clinic in the Astrodome on the field with some of the players. Boy, that was cool…what a lucky kid I was. My parents were awesome, I miss them.
On the other hand one of my Aunts thought the whole thing was faked.
I got to see plenty of shuttle launches in Orlando, but the locals all said they were like bottle rockets compared to the Mercury and Apollo programs.
Two thoughts on this: (1) I was 15 at the time, and working bussing tables at a Virginia Beach restaurant that summer. I listened to a commentator on the car radio describing the events of the landing and excursion on the way home from work, and cursed the fact that I, who was and am such a space nut, missed watching the first step on the TV. (2) In the Eastern Church, July 20th is the celebration of St. Elijah and his ascent in the fiery chariot, and I thought it was quite the coincidence that the landing occurred on that feast day!
Yup. 40 years ago today we left, and 37 years ago that we abandoned the moon.
@ Fr. Ron: Actually, the LEM’s computer was far, far, far less than 32k. It was probably around 4 by todays standards, though they didn’t really rate things in those terms in those days. But they didn’t really need it – the computations were done on the ground and radioed up to the Apollo. Also, as the landing was dodgier than expected they more or less ignored the computer and Armstrong landed the thing by hand.