Apollo 11 anniversary/moon landing

[Ken Palmer]

Hello everyone. Well, as most of you probably know, today is the 40-year anniversary of us Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landing their lunar module on the moon. I was like three years old when it took place and was living in Japan due to my late father being stationed there in the Air Force. We moved to Florida later that year after the landing,but we saw a couple of other rocket launches either later in '69 or possibly in 1970 or so. We were stationed at Patrick Air Force Base in Satellite Beach,Florida from 1969 to sometime in '71. I obviously was much too young to understand the space program at the time. But as I grew older, I developed a huge interest in it coming up. Anyway, does anyone have any memories of when this lunar landing took place? Just curious.

Ken Palmer

[bulldawg]

I was starting my 2nd tour in Vietnam when they landed on the moon.

[Fitz1980]

Such an amazing feat. I wasn't born yet, in fact my parents hadn't even met yet. I wish we could have another amazing feat like that. Personally I believe that we should have already been to Mars; we have the technology to develop such a mission, but it's all about priorities and our elected officials have others these days.

[David77]

I was age 43 at the time and had much anxiety as to whether the mission could be accomplished, but was relieved when our black and white television set showed pictures that they actually reached the moon.

At that time in our history we felt in great competition with the Soviet Union as they had put up the first (unmaned) space object, the satellite named Sputnik in 1957, so we felt triumphant in not only putting a man on the moon, but finally surpassing the Soviet Union in the space endeavor.

[bill2me]

I turned 16 that summer. I remember that night like it was yesterday. My family still had only a portable b/w tv set and the 7 of us sat around it at 1 AM waiting for that fantastic moment to take place. I remember looking outside and every house on the block in all directions was lite up. It truly was an amazing experience. Bill

[BinCo]

I was a wee lad of 1 when they landed on the moon, but made up for not seeing it by seeing the Apollo-Suyez launch and all the Shuttle launches until I moved from Florida in 1989.

It would be great to go back, but with politics these days it would cost 20x as much and take twice as long. Every one of those slimey gits in the House and Senate would have to push to have something done in their district, at any cost. Repubs would challenge the tax spending to do it and Dems would challenge why we have people still going hungry and yet go to the moon. Neither side sees the forest for the trees when it comes to space exploration. They are ignorant of the advances in materials alone that the program created and how they effect our future.

It was a different time in the world and we had different priorities. It's unfortunate that so many take space travel for granted. I just remind them that only 12 men have ever walked on the moon and now 500 have been in space. One of the two shuttle astronauts on this current mission is the 500th and the other is the 501st human to ever be in space. Now those are some exclusive numbers.

We had vision back then. A president could inspire the nation to do something that only a couple of generations earlier was considered a dream that humans would never achieve. Perhaps we will someday get back to that kind of a country.

[Naturist Mark]

It would be great to go back, but with politics these days it would cost 20x as much and take twice as long.

We ARE going back, even though most Americans don't seem to be aware of it, we have a new moon program underway right now to return us to the moon by 2020, leading to the establishment of a permanent moonbase which would be used as a stepping stone to a manned Mars mission. It is taking about twice as long, and probably will cost several times as much - it was budgeted at $187 billion in today's dollars (Apollo cost about $145 billion in current dollars). This new program was designed to only add about $1 billion per year to NASA's existing budget. Of course ... costs are likely to run higher than planned.

The program was announced by George W. Bush in 2004 as the Vision for Space Exploration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration) and is now referred to as Project Constellation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Constellation_logo_white.svg/250px-Constellation_logo_white.svg.png

The program continues on track, and is supported by the Obama Administration.

NASA Sets Its Sights On Return To Moon, Then On To Mars (http://www.rferl.org/content/NASA_Sets_Its_Sights_On_Return_To_Moon_Then_On_To_ Mars/1779788.html)