Mastodawn

An early, but still vivid, formative memory of mine was watching the noisy, black & white video of the Apollo 11 mission. It was partly responsible for my enduring sense of awe and possibility, and probably the moment I knew I had to be a scientist or engineer.

Our world is going to hell in many ways, to be sure, but we're going to the moon again today, and I can't help but get excited about that.

Matt Blaze 17h ago

We had a pretty crappy president then, too.

Matt Blaze 17h ago

The space program was inseparable from the cold war that gave birth to it, but it also transcended it. It was, by design or not, about far more than rockets or space. It was about inspiration and imagination.

For a generation of a certain kind of nerdy kid, there was *nothing* cooler than space, rockets, exploration. For many of us, the feeling stuck.

Matt Blaze 14h ago

That was something, even on the small screen. And one of the rare moments where I find myself wishing I was in Florida.

Matt Blaze 13h ago

We’re spending an enormous amount of time, money, and effort, requiring vision and courage, to do something big where the objective isn’t to kill anyone or conquer anything, but just to perhaps learn some interesting things about the universe in which we live.

Maybe some politicians get some bragging rights.

I’m OK with that, even if I don’t care for the politicians.

Steve Barnes 12h ago

If it's any further consolation: I (I'm guessing the younger of the two of us) have always thought reverently on the Apollo 11 moon mission but don't know off the top of my head which president it was.

Carolyn 12h ago

@Starfia @mattblaze This is beyond a political term.

eestileib (she/hers)11h ago

I'm just glad they didn't kill anybody yet.

Femme Malheureuse 13h ago

@mattblaze It was a particularly nice night for a launch. It had been hazy much of the day, cloud cover didn't really break up until after 4:00 pm.

Sorry you weren't here to FL to see it but maybe you'll catch the next one.

@mattblaze I was really excited to watch it, but after the initial heave, I was underwhelmed. SpaceX launch footage has spoiled me 🥺

Still very excited about the mission

Space Catitude 🚀17h ago

@mattblaze
I wish I could get back in that spirit. It is very cool. I've gotten very cynical about space politics, though.

Carolyn 17h ago

@TerryHancock @mattblaze Politics and tech bros. Venture capitalists.

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@CStamp @TerryHancock @mattblaze I feel a great deal of cynicism and skepticism, but I still got quite a kick out of watching the launch (via stream, not in Florida). First one I've watched since the 1980s.

Carolyn 13h ago

@oclsc @TerryHancock @mattblaze Me, too. As long as it’s still a NASA brand. They haven’t fired everyone yet.

Steve Bellovin 17h ago

@mattblaze Yes. I’m (barely) old enough to remember Sputnik, but the space program always fascinated me.

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@SteveBellovin @mattblaze nyah nyah my father was a writer in the public information office at JPL for all the unpeopled science missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Ranger, Mariner, and Surveyor are old friends. We'll never have another time like that. (Well, I won't.)

Steve Bellovin 11h ago

@oclsc @mattblaze There wasn't a mission I didn't watch. They brought large (for the day) TVs into our classrooms, so we could watch Shephard and Glenn. For family connections, I had an EE uncle who worked on the TIROS weather satellites—he brought be photos sent down from it. My best friend had a toy space helmet—I was exceedingly jealous. And it all culminated in Apollo 11—watching a live telecast from the Moon was utterly mind-boggling.

I loved the space program (still do). The Apollo landings were to me a pinnacle of wonder and human achievement. Now I read about Artemis and can think only about exploitation and despoilation extending beyond the earth. Times have changed and I have changed. Alas!

Paul_IPv6 16h ago

i remember the early apollo missions on TV and being blown away at the idea that someone so far from earth could send video/audio to my TV. surely getting from that to a star trek universe was doable, maybe even in my lifetime. after all, my grandparents had gone from the wright brothers to manned spaceflight in their lifetime.

NASA hasn't been perfect but there's still a bit of that science magic in space exploration.

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@paul_ipv6 @mattblaze I had similar thoughts about all the live video from odd places today. Watching the main engine jettison live! Back in the Apollo days I think we had till mission end to wait for that sort of detai4.

Michael Stanclift 17h ago

@mattblaze maybe blissfully unaware of how bad it was though?

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@vmstan @mattblaze Full awareness in my leftie household. Not nearly as shitty as today. Back then we couldn't have imagined Trump, his groupies/toadies, and the disintegration of all responsibility and ethics in the GOP.

@mattblaze Along with the moon landing, one of my earliest memories is looking at a car ahead of us and asking my mom what “Impeach Nixon” meant.

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@mkb @mattblaze I must be older than you; I knew what I meant. And I remember my parents campaigning for Gene McCarthy.

noplasticshower 17h ago

@mattblaze same

@mattblaze My parents had just got our first color TV. I was a little bit disappointed that the simulation footage was sharp and colorful but the real thing was grainy and BW.

Ralph Brandi 17h ago

@phil_stevens @mattblaze We only had a black and white TV, so we went over to my grandparents’ house, because they had a color TV, smaller than our black and white but hey, color. And then yeah, the video from the moon was in black and white. I turned six the following week. I’ve had an enduring love of space ever since.

Prabhakar Ragde 17h ago

@mattblaze Sadly, I am the opposite. I followed the space missions from Gemini 5 to Apollo 17. I got up in the middle of the night to see the first moonwalk broadcast live. I wanted to be a physicist (until an actual physicist talked me out of it).

I now think it was a deliberate diversion from issues closer to home, and a colossal waste of time and money. And it's the last thing we need right now. I'm not arguing with you. We just don't align on this one.

Matt Blaze 17h ago

@plragde I pity you.

@mattblaze I have a similar recollection. I was at our summer place, so no TV, just radio, but that and then all the pictures in Life magazine..

Linux Is Best 17h ago

@mattblaze

Today's mission is only a flyby, but it is something nonetheless. I was born in 1981, which means the last Moon mission was nine years before I was born.

I don’t like that technology — and especially space travel — hasn’t progressed much. We went from horse-and-carriage rides to cars, to planes, to the Moon in record time. Then we kind of slowed down. Not even going to the moon for 54 years.

I am hoping for progressive and rapid development.

Schamschula 17h ago

@mattblaze As a kid watching those same broadcasts, I couldn't have imagined that I would eventually move to the Rocket City, a.k.a. Huntsville, AL, where a lot of the development work for both Apollo and Artemis has been done.

Me too, very excited.

me_valentijn 17h ago

@mattblaze
The first launch I remember was Challenger. There was a lot of excitement about it at our elementary school, and I'm pretty sure there was a TV tuned in for the launch in the cafeteria or something.

I guess we got a different message out of that one 😂

Matt Blaze 17h ago

@me_valentijn Oof!

@me_valentijn @mattblaze
I attended Clear Lake High School at the time, and which is the closest high school to the Johnson Space Center. Several Astronauts had children in that school, and some of them watched that launch live in class. To say that it was traumatizing is an understatement. The school forbade live launch viewings after that.

Carolyn 17h ago

@mattblaze I am both excited about it (what took so long), and trepidatious about tech bros getting involved. I don’t want to see big ads up in the sky. ;)

I always thought of NASA as the best of humankind: science, integrity, adventure, exploration. But now they are bringing in the exploitation crowd.

MidgePhoto 17h ago

@mattblaze I recall Apollo 8
I'm disappointed his sister isn't orbiting the Moon, preferably polar orbiting, but their return is paramount.

BlueDot 16h ago

I remember the day Apollo 11 landed. There was a golf tournament that Sunday, and I was supposed to work as a caddy, and I didn't show up because I was watching the moon landing on TV. First time I got fired.

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@mattblaze My memory is vague; I wish it was vivid. (I'm not sure any of my childhood memories are vivid.)

Norman Wilson 13h ago

@mattblaze Clearer memories of the crappy president, though.

Come On Giant Asteroid!13h ago

Mom thought Dad was nuts when he insisted on getting me and my sister up when LT Armstrong came down the ladder ... in living black and white.

Aldo Bruno 13h ago

https://youtu.be/2WoDQBhJCVQ

The Greatest Shot In Television

YouTube

WellsiteGeo 6h ago

@mattblaze
This is time and attention not focused on Dear Leader, so is unacceptable.

Artemis will be overshadowed by Dear Leader's Glorious War against Iran for the freedom to profit from insider trading.

Heil, Dear Leader!