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.

Show thread

me_valentijn 13h 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 😂

Show thread

Bruce Heerssen

@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.