It Was 50 Years Ago Last Month

adorshki

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Never forget the importance of dress rehearsals:
Why didn't Apollo 10 land on the moon?

snoopy-1.jpg

Snoopy Come Home: The Search For Apollo 10
(yeah that's a link)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuLI6B7AU-M
 

dreadnut

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I heard a speaker one time talking about how prophetic HG Wells was about space travel and his illustrations were even pretty close to the future rockets, perhaps somewhat a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, he pointed out, no one predicted that when the moon landing happened millions of people would be watching it in their homes on television.

My Dad and I were glued to the TV the whole time.
 

Quantum Strummer

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I saw Apollo 11 lift off while my folks & I were in Scotland (my mom's home country) and then the landing & moonwalk the afternoon & evening after we flew back home. Both via small b&w TV sets…we upgraded to color later in '69. :) As with lotsa other people, I suspect, there was a special feeling in looking up at the moon while knowing other humans were walking (and later riding) around on its surface.

-Dave-
 

adorshki

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I saw Apollo 11 lift off while my folks & I were in Scotland (my mom's home country) and then the landing & moonwalk the afternoon & evening after we flew back home. Both via small b&w TV sets…we upgraded to color later in '69. :) As with lotsa other people, I suspect, there was a special feeling in looking up at the moon while knowing other humans were walking (and later riding) around on its surface.

-Dave-

THAT 50th anniversary's next month.... :friendly_wink:
And while I was thrilled at the fact of it, I felt the TV coverage was somehow anti-climactic, being of such poor quality.
Maybe I was spoiled by all the National Geographic articles covering the Gemini missions, with incredible photography.
What I've seen on recent documentaries has been so cleaned up digitally that it no longer conveys just how primitive the picture quality was at the time.
I seem to recall barely being able to make out that it was a man on the ladder of the lander, and thinking about it, audio was just as "good"....
Barely 2 years later and it was just another golf destination:
How Alan Shepard Tricked NASA and Hit the Most Famous Shot in History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hYrhJSUpDA
 

walrus

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I remember it well! Exciting for a 10 year old boy!

I'm no "non-believer" but I've never seen a good explanation for how they got that video of Armstrong taking one small step. It's coming from outside the module! Some sort of robot arm?

walrus
 

JohnW63

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I found your answer:

The Neil Armstrong's "First step on the Moon" was filmed by a camera installed on the MESA (Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly) at the side of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) descent stage that Neil Armstrong had to pull a lanyard to unlock the pallet and make it drop open. A switch inside the LM, operated by Buzz Aldrin, then activated the TV camera which was installed there:


Source: https://space.stackexchange.com/que...the-camera-on-the-moon-to-film-the-first-step
 

dreadnut

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I saw Alan Shepard speak in Auburn Hills years ago, at the "Loctite Space Camp" golf outing. He told the story of how he finagled the whole golf shot thing. He closed by saying "and I can honestly say that I left my balls on the moon."
 

walrus

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Thanks John!

BTW the new CNN documentary about Apollo 11 was excellent! Lots of new film clips and very well presented.

walrus
 

adorshki

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Thanks John!

BTW the new CNN documentary about Apollo 11 was excellent! Lots of new film clips and very well presented.

walrus

Yep, that's actually what got me going on this.
Cleanest footage I've ever seen of it.
Also liked how they noted the time as elapsed hours into the mission.
3 days to the moon.
Think about that for minute.
As a kid you don't really grasp the incredibility, it's just sci-fi reality.
Also love how they gave the heart rates at various critical maneuvers.
Like after the 3rd stage orbital burn getting ready for lunar injection (or maybe it was right after performing the lunar injection?) Armstrong was down to 80-something.
Another recently debuted documentary went into the story of the guy whoreally "figured out" how to get to the moon:
John Houbolt.
NOT Von Braun.
VB was till hung up on mega-rockets.
The problem with getting one of those behemoths to the moon was weight of the fuel payload.
NO way realistically get enough off the planet to get there and back in a fixed vehicle configuration.
Needed to break the task up into component vehicles which could be discarded to reduce mass and thus fuel required for the lunar landing and escape, and return.
Although Houbolt didn't create the concept, his tireless lobbying for it was what truly made the landings possible within JFK's stated deadline of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. (Apollo 12 made it, too.)
Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" is also a great read.
Another thought:
The Space Race was actually one the best things to ever happen to this country, economically.
Plenty of jobs created and all kinds of consumer fringe benefits in technological advances.
Tang and Velcro, baby.
And the AGC:
"The computer's performance was comparable to the first generation of home computers from the late 1970s, such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET"
As a kid I was entranced by the Gemini program.
Maybe that's part of why the moon landing didn't seem so world-changing to me, it was a foregone conclusion.
OF COURSE we were going to get there.
FIRST.
But with Gemini things weren't yet so certain.
We did our first space walk.
We practiced docking.
10 manned missions in 24 months, including:
Gemini V, 21–29 August 1965: First week-long flight; first use of fuel cells for electrical power; evaluated guidance and navigation system for future rendezvous missions. Completed 120 orbits.
Gemini VII, 4–18 December 1965: When the original Gemini VI mission was scrubbed because the launch of the Agena docking target failed, Gemini VII was used as the rendezvous target instead. Primary objective was to determine whether humans could live in space for 14 days.
Gemini VIII, 16–17 March 1966: Accomplished first docking with another space vehicle, an unmanned Agena Target Vehicle. While docked, a Gemini spacecraft thruster malfunction caused near-fatal tumbling of the craft, which, after undocking, Armstrong was able to overcome; the crew effected the first emergency landing of a manned U.S. space mission.
In my 9-year old youthful naivete I remember going outside at 4:00 in the morning on docking day to see if I could actually see 'em.
For Christmas of '67 I got one of these:
91XreLjpCoL._SX425_.jpg

In the background the Saturn boosters for the Apollo program were being tested and the Apollo program carried on where Gemimi ended, missing only a tragic beat before actually going all the way in December of '68:
Apollo 8: Dec 21–27, 1968
By Apollo 11 we'd already been there twice before.
What could possibly go wrong?
Your backyard might be too small:
1960s_comic_ad_gemini.jpg
 
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Nuuska

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adorshki

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I followed that link - and I immediately thought - that guitar looks so much like my first acoustic guitar - namely the german FRAMUS - bolt-on-neck with that same metal plate - were they made in Italy by EKO ?
According to a poster on the Gretsch Pages, that's a "yes".
Even without that specific confirmation it seems highly likely since EKO's ID'd as the maker of several Vox models in the '60's.
Suspect in this case it was their basic entry-level model that they offered to "private label" for anybody who wanted 'em.
Thus your Framus version.
 
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