For all mankind
Jul. 20th, 2009 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyBig shiny American flag notwithstanding, of course.
I just caught the 1989 documentary "For All Mankind" on TCM, a rather interesting montage of all the Apollo missions to the moon. If you're not a space geek or a person of the right age, you might find it confusing: too many faces, too many voices, the appalling loss of pressure during Apollo 13 pasted in just before the Apollo 11 landing and an awful lot of different people bouncing across the lunar landscape. Or you might find yourself singing along with one of the astronaut's tapes of Buck Owens, or like me, tearing up during the recitation of numbers in the landing sequence and the Oh-So-Right-Stuff-laconic words, "Okay, engine stop" as the shadow outside that triangular window resolved through the dust into something sharp and unmoving.
See, I remember this stuff. OK, I was a bit young to remember the John Glenn orbital shot in any detail, but I do recall when the National Air and Space Museum was a Quonset hut on the Mall and all they had was the Spirit of St. Louis and the Friendship 7 and a couple of rockets,
http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/history.cfm
I remember watching some of the Gemini missions and all of Apollo on TV and Mom waking me up in the wee hours of a school night just so I could watch a lunar eclipse in the freezing cold from our back porch in Minneapolis. We'd just moved into the house in Teaneck in the summer of 1969. My cousin Kevin was staying with us, and we sat up late (well, it was very late for my younger sisters at 10:56 pm Eastern) to watch Neil Armstrong drop the last few feet off that ladder in grainy black and white and say those words.
There's a box in the attic at home with the Life coverage of the Apollo 1 launchpad fire and the Newsweek issue from 40 years ago this week. I had a kite with Snoopy on it, wearing a space suit and holding a life support suitcase, giving an "All Systems Are Go" thumbs up, and a big red, white and blue button with a photo of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins on it.
Yeah. I was a child of the Space Age. I remember some years later visiting the "new" Air and Space Museum and pausing at the mockup of the interior of the LEM as the landing sequence video and audio ran on a continuous loop. A member of the Nintendo generation wandered by, glanced at it, rolled eyes at his parental units and complained, 'it's in black and white" before wandering on.
40 years later, I typing this on a machine that probably has more computing power than NASA had at its disposal to put people into space and I marvel.
Anybody want to go to the USS Hornet with me on Saturday and hear Col. Aldrin speak? http://www.uss-hornet.org/posters/splashdown/tickets.shtml
I just caught the 1989 documentary "For All Mankind" on TCM, a rather interesting montage of all the Apollo missions to the moon. If you're not a space geek or a person of the right age, you might find it confusing: too many faces, too many voices, the appalling loss of pressure during Apollo 13 pasted in just before the Apollo 11 landing and an awful lot of different people bouncing across the lunar landscape. Or you might find yourself singing along with one of the astronaut's tapes of Buck Owens, or like me, tearing up during the recitation of numbers in the landing sequence and the Oh-So-Right-Stuff-laconic words, "Okay, engine stop" as the shadow outside that triangular window resolved through the dust into something sharp and unmoving.
See, I remember this stuff. OK, I was a bit young to remember the John Glenn orbital shot in any detail, but I do recall when the National Air and Space Museum was a Quonset hut on the Mall and all they had was the Spirit of St. Louis and the Friendship 7 and a couple of rockets,
http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/history.cfmI remember watching some of the Gemini missions and all of Apollo on TV and Mom waking me up in the wee hours of a school night just so I could watch a lunar eclipse in the freezing cold from our back porch in Minneapolis. We'd just moved into the house in Teaneck in the summer of 1969. My cousin Kevin was staying with us, and we sat up late (well, it was very late for my younger sisters at 10:56 pm Eastern) to watch Neil Armstrong drop the last few feet off that ladder in grainy black and white and say those words.
There's a box in the attic at home with the Life coverage of the Apollo 1 launchpad fire and the Newsweek issue from 40 years ago this week. I had a kite with Snoopy on it, wearing a space suit and holding a life support suitcase, giving an "All Systems Are Go" thumbs up, and a big red, white and blue button with a photo of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins on it.
Yeah. I was a child of the Space Age. I remember some years later visiting the "new" Air and Space Museum and pausing at the mockup of the interior of the LEM as the landing sequence video and audio ran on a continuous loop. A member of the Nintendo generation wandered by, glanced at it, rolled eyes at his parental units and complained, 'it's in black and white" before wandering on.
40 years later, I typing this on a machine that probably has more computing power than NASA had at its disposal to put people into space and I marvel.
Anybody want to go to the USS Hornet with me on Saturday and hear Col. Aldrin speak? http://www.uss-hornet.org/posters/splashdown/tickets.shtml
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:31 am (UTC)The girls are away starting Wed., I am thinking about doing some shooting or going up to the City etc.
For All Mankind
Date: 2009-07-21 02:14 pm (UTC)Damn, I live on the wrong coast....
By the way, it's Mrs. Strowe.
Re: For All Mankind
Date: 2009-07-21 02:48 pm (UTC)Unless I get hit by a bus, I plan to go and will post about it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 03:01 pm (UTC)That was just way cool.
And I just finished watching a clip from yesterday's View, where Whoopie Goldberg >ack, ptui< questions the actual landing (why was the flag waving? And who was shooting the video?).
Cheeses me off.
I have to find that footage of Buzz Aldrin decking the guy who challenged the record.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 02:46 am (UTC)