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APOLLO 11 LUNAR MISSION 50th Anniversary


Strider

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1969. The year Led Zeppelin launched in the record shops and Apollo 11 launched to the moon. 

Which means you have to be over 50 to have memories of either event, hahaha.

As a kid I hated getting up early during summer vacation. It would take an act of god or mother nature (Earthquake!) to get me out of bed before 9 am. There were a few exceptions...going surfing or going on a camping trip.

The other exception was the Apollo mission launches. They usually happened around 6 am PST. 50 years ago on July 16, 1969 I gladly got up at 6 am for the Apollo 11 rocket launch. This was the BIG ONE...the first manned expedition to the moon. If you didn't get goosebumps you weren't human.

The launch occurred exactly at 6:32 am PST...13:32 UTC (or Greenwich Mean Time).

So fellow Forum Members...who else was up watching the Apollo 11 launch 50 years ago? Was it a big deal or no deal in your household/city/country?

You can relive the launch here:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-landing-watch-live-stream-the-moon-landing-original-date-50-year-anniversary-july-16-1969/

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1 hour ago, Strider said:

1969. The year Led Zeppelin launched in the record shops and Apollo 11 launched to the moon. 

Which means you have to be over 50 to have memories of either event, hahaha.

As a kid I hated getting up early during summer vacation. It would take an act of god or mother nature (Earthquake!) to get me out of bed before 9 am. There were a few exceptions...going surfing or going on a camping trip.

The other exception was the Apollo mission launches. They usually happened around 6 am PST. 50 years ago on July 16, 1969 I gladly got up at 6 am for the Apollo 11 rocket launch. This was the BIG ONE...the first manned expedition to the moon. If you didn't get goosebumps you weren't human.

The launch occurred exactly at 6:32 am PST...13:32 UTC (or Greenwich Mean Time).

So fellow Forum Members...who else was up watching the Apollo 11 launch 50 years ago? Was it a big deal or no deal in your household/city/country?

You can relive the launch here:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-landing-watch-live-stream-the-moon-landing-original-date-50-year-anniversary-july-16-1969/

Not born yet, so no. I have been to KSC many times though and have walked through the mission control room used that day.  

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It was certainly a big deal for my dad, who was 14 at the time. He was a prefect and was as a reward for his exceptional academic and athletic achievements, even invited to the local US Consulate for a special screening of the moon landing. Prefects from top schools in the city were invited.

My dad even dreamed of becoming an aeronautical engineer like one Mr. Neil Armstrong, but settled for Marine Engineering in the end. :) 

Edited by Kiwi_Zep_Fan87
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The landing was about 2am here and the moonwalk a couple of hours later. My dad promised he would get my brother (11) and I (12) up just before the landing, well he didn't. In the morning he said he'd fallen asleep and had only woken up during the moonwalk, so we would have to wait until the six o'clock news (no morning TV back then) reports. I had been so looking forward to watching live as it happened, to say I was disappointed in my dad was an understatement, I just wish my mum had been interested enough to watch, she would have got us up.

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What a great idea for a thread.  I was nine, almost 10.  We watched so many launches and missions in the 60s I don't recall the specific launch, but I do clearly recall watching live when Armstrong stepped out and on to the moon.  I also remember getting a free lunar landing module model every day at the local Texaco station.  My brothers, friends and I spent lots of time building those models and acting out the whole series of steps in the mission from when the LEM left the orbiting ship with Michael Collins to take Armstrong and Aldrin down to the moon. 

It was a very big deal that summer.  My parents were really into it, maybe just because we were so into it, but they made sure we were awake to watch the first steps on the moon.  

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43 minutes ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

I watched it, launch, landing, moon-walk, the full Monty. However I was only 1 year old and likely shitting myself while my good mother held me but, at least I was there, even if I don't remember it.

+1

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James-Gang-Chris-Walter.jpg.9734481a7b2044ed31afd09da47a75d9.jpg

James Gang's Jimmy Fox Remembers Opening For Led Zeppelin On Day Of Moon Landing

On July 20, 1969, the same day Apollo 11 became the first spacecraft to land humans on the moon, the James Gang opened for Led Zeppelin at the Musicarnival in the Cleveland suburb of Warrensville Heights.

For drummer Jimmy Fox, the significance of the two events happening at the same time wasn't lost on him. "It was a monumental day," he tells UCR. "'Hey man, they're landing on the goddamn Moon and we're playing with Led Zeppelin!' It was big, big stuff for us. It's probably a watershed day."

The James Gang had met half of Led Zeppelin a year earlier, when they played on a bill with the Yardbirds, which included Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones, who was in another of the show's openers, John Paul Jones and the American Navy. But hearing Led Zeppelin, Fox remembers, was "overwhelming. They were so strong and powerful and so inventive."

Even though the James Gang had fallen in love with Led Zeppelin's debut album, what impressed them most that day was how they were able to duplicate that sound in concert.

"It was a miracle," Fox says. "I was already building a healthy skepticism for artists' ability to recreate what they did in the studio on a stage, and there it was. Every note accounted for, even though it was not a note-for-note performance, it left room for improvisation and all of that great stuff. But it was the absolute equivalent of the album in performance and also in sound. I mean, they had it. Those guys made those sounds and they were there."

Fox notes that he thinks "it's fair to say that we never heard anything quite like that before. And to hear it performed live with the same impact as the album was a major deal for us. It was like, 'God, we didn't know you could do that!"

The only downside of the evening, he recalls, was that the James Gang weren't invited to hang out with Led Zeppelin backstage, even though they knew Page and Jones. Still, he says, guitarist Joe Walsh dropped in to say "a quick hello" to them.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/james-gang-led-zeppelin-moon-landing/

 

Edited by luvlz2
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I remember it well for being 9 years old!  The launch and voyage, orbiting the moon, touchdown and then Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on an alien world! We'd followed the Apollo missions for years and this was it!

 

To this day it stands as an outstanding achievement for human kind...

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Here is CBS News with Walter Cronkite's coverage of the launch that morning of July 16, 1969...four and a half hours. Including the old commercials...look for a young Barbara Hershey in a Westinghouse ad about 30 minutes in. Still as compelling today as it was 50 years ago.

 

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21 hours ago, John M said:

What a great idea for a thread.  I was nine, almost 10.  We watched so many launches and missions in the 60s I don't recall the specific launch, but I do clearly recall watching live when Armstrong stepped out and on to the moon.  I also remember getting a free lunar landing module model every day at the local Texaco station.  My brothers, friends and I spent lots of time building those models and acting out the whole series of steps in the mission from when the LEM left the orbiting ship with Michael Collins to take Armstrong and Aldrin down to the moon. 

It was a very big deal that summer.  My parents were really into it, maybe just because we were so into it, but they made sure we were awake to watch the first steps on the moon.  

Building models was one of my hobbies growing up. I spent a lot of time at the local hobby shop looking over the Revell and Monogram model kits. Airplanes, cars, ships, tanks...and when the Space Race got cooking, models of the Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo spaceships. My dad worked for JPL for a time and nearly every week he would bring me a new spaceship or rocket model. My crowning glory was building this beast...Revell's Saturn V rocket. 1/96 scale...it was huge! I miss my old models...they are long gone. But I found some photos of Revell's classic kit from the internet.

191948-12332-32-540.jpg.e9ba34bce193dbec3e4a2e0dc4fc204b.jpgrevell-apollo-saturn-moon-rocket-96_1_13f08c246aba855c244a36578569c901.thumb.jpg.92045fe71379e4b369521c5822f6c256.jpgvintage-1969-revell-apollo-saturn_1_0e51e36f621fc3ea43b651816793c2cd.thumb.jpg.cc80d479c3cc694be2bb1242ead03a19.jpg

Edited by Strider
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1 hour ago, Strider said:

Building models was one of my hobbies growing up.

I used to buy the models to sell in my dad's store.  I learned that from my older brother.  We all built alot of models too.  We had some strange traditions too with models.  One was we would pour glue on battleship models and light them on fire in our neighbor's pool to make battle scenes.  Man did we get in trouble when he got caught!  Just so you know, the neighbor kid was my older brother's best friend and chief instigator in this crazy activity.  

One time  my brother was getting frustrated with a model and he threw it against the wall in our basement where we all built models.  The next few times anyone got frustrated with a decal or something he would say "you should just wall it"  He drew a big X on the wall and soon on a regular basis models were being demolished against that wall.  It was a stone wall - very old house.

We also built balsa wood model airplanes in middle school shop class, covering the wings with that thin paper and then coating it with "dope" and yes it really was called "dope". 

My favorite models were WWII fighter planes.  

Edited by John M
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I was watching the landing at a friends. But I wanted to watch the moonwalk at home, so I got on my trusty Schwinn Stingray and prayed they wouldn't emerge from the lander while I was riding the five or six blocks home. That ride is really etched into my brain because it was a big, busy, four lane major street-normally. It was completely empty. NO ONE. It really hit me then, EVERYONE in the WORLD was watching TV at that moment. I've been watching all the Apollo stuff lately, can't get enough, love it. It was a miraculous achievement, and I hate to see these boneheaded conspiracy nuts try to take that away from those three heroes. They did it. A million things could have gone wrong, but they didn't and it was epic.

Oh, and I was big model builder too as a kid, but maybe that's for another thread

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8 hours ago, Strider said:

Building models was one of my hobbies growing up. I spent a lot of time at the local hobby shop looking over the Revell and Monogram model kits. Airplanes, cars, ships, tanks...and when the Space Race got cooking, models of the Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo spaceships. My dad worked for JPL for a time and nearly every week he would bring me a new spaceship or rocket model. My crowning glory was building this beast...Revell's Saturn V rocket. 1/96 scale...it was huge! I miss my old models...they are long gone. But I found some photos of Revell's classic kit from the internet.

191948-12332-32-540.jpg.e9ba34bce193dbec3e4a2e0dc4fc204b.jpgrevell-apollo-saturn-moon-rocket-96_1_13f08c246aba855c244a36578569c901.thumb.jpg.92045fe71379e4b369521c5822f6c256.jpgvintage-1969-revell-apollo-saturn_1_0e51e36f621fc3ea43b651816793c2cd.thumb.jpg.cc80d479c3cc694be2bb1242ead03a19.jpg

Howdy Strider,

You mentioned your dad worked for JPL, did he by chance ever meet Jack Parsons? I know Parsons died in 52' but maybe you dad was working for them back then? Either way, your dad must of had an interesting time at JPL.

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I had just graduated high school & been on a new job for a couple of weeks. I brought one of those big 4 band transistor radios to work that day. My boss asked me what the radio was for. I told we were landing on the Moon today & I wanted to listen to it. He told me I could watch it on TV after I punched out.

images.jpeg

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11 hours ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

Howdy Strider,

You mentioned your dad worked for JPL, did he by chance ever meet Jack Parsons? I know Parsons died in 52' but maybe you dad was working for them back then? Either way, your dad must of had an interesting time at JPL.

No, my dad was still in school in '52. Besides, I think Jack was booted out of JPL by 1944, years before he met his fiery death.

Jack Parsons is one of those great figures embedded in the history of the 20th century, waiting for you to discover him. You just have to dig a little because he's been pretty much written out of the official history. Rocket science, the founding of JPL, Thelema, OTO, Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, Cameron, orgies, Devil's Gate in Pasadena, Curtis Harrington, Kenneth Anger....once you start looking you'll go down a fascinating rabbit-hole.

Watch "Night Tide", Dennis Hopper's first starring role, and you will see Cameron, Jack's occultist wife and a muse/siren to many in that artistic/bohemian community of the time. The film was directed by Curtis Harrington. 

But now I'm straying way off-topic. I'll leave it to you if you want to go down that hole.

Edited by Strider
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Fantastic thread, Strider 👍 The original CBS coverage is great! I love the commercials.
 
I wasn't even 3 years old at the time so I don't remember it.
I was on vacation with my family in the Bavarian Alps. We stayed in a small village at a small B&B. By the time not everyone had a television set especially not in the countryside. So my father and my brother watched the landing live on television at a pub at night.
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10 hours ago, Strider said:

No, my dad was still in school in '52. Besides, I think Jack was booted out of JPL by 1944, years before he met his fiery death.

Jack Parsons is one of those great figures embedded in the history of the 20th century, waiting for you to discover him. You just have to dig a little because he's been pretty much written out of the official history. Rocket science, the founding of JPL, Thelema, OTO, Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, Cameron, orgies, Devil's Gate in Pasadena, Curtis Harrington, Kenneth Anger....once you start looking you'll go down a fascinating rabbit-hole.

Watch "Night Tide", Dennis Hopper's first starring role, and you will see Cameron, Jack's occultist wife and a muse/siren to many in that artistic/bohemian community of the time. The film was directed by Curtis Harrington. 

But now I'm straying way off-topic. I'll leave it to you if you want to go down that hole.

Thanks Strider. Yes, Parsons & Gang were an interesting group indeed. Just to think of the many interlinks between Parson's group and other famous, influential people is fascinating.

Now for some real fun... I recently heard that the first words out of Armstrong's mouth were not the iconic, "One small step for man..." but rather when he first stepped out of the LM he said, "My god...there are several ships lined up on the far side of the crater, I believe they are watching us." Now I don't know if this is true or not but I do know Buzz Aldrin did admit, on camera, to some seriously strange shit on the moon and eluded to alien structures on several occasions. However I always thought Armstrong was tight lipped and never said anything unusual.  What I do know is that NASA, on orders from congress, immediately killed the remainder of the lunar schedule and the lunar program after Apollo 18 even though at least four other missions were planned up to 1975 with full budgeting granted. No real reason (no reasonable explanation that is) was ever given just, gone.

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Real time livestream of the entire Apollo 11 Mission. Meaning that whenever you click on the link you are seeing exactly what was happening 50 years ago at that moment. You can rewind back to catch what you have missed.

 

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3 hours ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

Now for some real fun... I recently heard that the first words out of Armstrong's mouth were not the iconic, "One small step for man..." but rather when he first stepped out of the LM he said, "My god...there are several ships lined up on the far side of the crater, I believe they are watching us." Now I don't know if this is true or not but I do know Buzz Aldrin did admit, on camera, to some seriously strange shit on the moon and eluded to alien structures on several occasions. However I always thought Armstrong was tight lipped and never said anything unusual.  What I do know is that NASA, on orders from congress, immediately killed the remainder of the lunar schedule and the lunar program after Apollo 18 even though at least four other missions were planned up to 1975 with full budgeting granted. No real reason (no reasonable explanation that is) was ever given just, gone.

Pure malarkey. You've been watching too many Transformers movies...or that faux hoax doc "Apollo 18". Actually, there were reasons given...budgetary contraints and NASA had achieved most of their goals. After the last moon landing in 1972, NASA's focus moved on to the Skylab mission for 1973-74.

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I started down the rabbit hole of structures on the moon a while back - like the UFO phenomena, it is digging around endless bullshit for a few scraps of "well that is genuinely interesting"....

And there are one or two interesting anomalies, some supported by some very respected astronauts and mission staff.

 

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17 hours ago, Strider said:

Pure malarkey. You've been watching too many Transformers movies...or that faux hoax doc "Apollo 18". Actually, there were reasons given...budgetary contraints and NASA had achieved most of their goals. After the last moon landing in 1972, NASA's focus moved on to the Skylab mission for 1973-74.

Don't know about that, after all Buzz Aldrin is on record about this stuff.

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