At 4:17 pm (EDT) the first words were spoken by a human on an alien world -

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

6 1/2 hours later, at 10:56 pm (EDT) Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on that alien world -

"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

All our classes were cancelled, and everyone in school went to watch the live coverage of the moon landing in the library because they had a TV there (a black and white TV, of course, but then the transmission was b/w as well).  I was 8yo and was deeply impressed.  Scary to think that was 37 years ago, I feel old now.

Gryshnak

You know the conspiracies.. People who think the whole thing was staged and no man ever went to the moon..

There's no reasoning with them...

Quote:


Yes, I know what he meant.

This is one of the reasons I miss the competition with the Soviets, there was a good long time when crazy programs got funding so that the first object on the moon would have "Made in USA" instead of "CAeNAHO B CCCP"(Cerylics dont show up) Stamped on it somewhere. Or any number of other things. I'm sure NASA got a big cutback as a direct result of the end of the Cold War.

Quote:

By the time Armstrong emerged from the LM and stepped onto the moon 6 1/2 hours later, it was already Monday afternoon in Australia where I was living at the time.  You don't forget an event like that so easily 

Gryshnak

The real tragedy is that having touched the moon, we then let it go.  I saw a very good analogy on Discovery Channel once - one of the people they were interviewing about the Apollo missions said he was driving to work many years later when he noticed a small dog chasing his car up the road.  This dog was really trying hard, putting all his energy into catching the car.  So the guy stopped.  The dog caught up, sniffed the nearest wheel, marked his territory in the usual fashion and walked off, showing no further interest.  And this guy thought to himself, that's exactly what we did with the moon.  We put all our effort into catching it, gave it our best shot, and when we finally got there we pissed on it to claim it, then we just walked away.

Gryshnak

Quote:

Don't worry Richie, this moron will keep his big mouth firmly shut this time. I think we've done this subject to death.
Except to say that the opposite was true. The conspiracy theories inspired the film.

gryshnak said: Quote:

The object of the exercise had been achieved. Beat the Soviets to the Moon by the end of the decade. There was no other motive & no point in continuing.