Mastodawn

noplasticshower 2h ago

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 2h ago

We had a pretty crappy president then, too.

Matt Blaze 2h 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.

Space Catitude 🚀2h ago

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

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

Steve Bellovin 2h ago

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

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 1h 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.

Michael Stanclift 2h ago

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

@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.

noplasticshower 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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 2h 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.

@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 2h ago

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

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.