54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.

(The 21st by UTC, though.)

I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

--
Kevin R
a.a #2310

In article <747188c8-fb5f-4962-830e-e75092469925n@googlegroups.com>,
Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
>54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.
>
>(The 21st by UTC, though.)
>
>I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
>
>--
>Kevin R

Subject: July 20 1969
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 01:54:40 EDT
From: ted@braggvax

Twenty years ago, a boy of eight sat in front of a decrepit black and
white TV and tried to make out the suited figures walking across that
desolate surface. If he thought hard he could remember Gemini. His
father could remember Lindbergh. He couldn't appreciate how
immeasurably far the world had come since Kitty Hawk, how impossibly
great an effort had been expended since 1961, but he knew what was
important and he was there watching. He heard the words that everyone
knows, and he watched until that strange buglike craft lifted and
returned the men whom history had just rendered immortal to their
companion in orbit and from there back to the embrace of the mother
planet. He knew where he was going when he grew up.

Twenty years later, when the future he had planned on has been bargained
away, he's sure of fewer things. He does know that he had the
privilege that July day in 1969, of living through the event to which
all previous human history will be just a footnote. And he knows too
that whatever else may happen, there will still be ...

footprints on the Moon.

--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article <747188c8-fb5f-4962-830e-e75092469925n@googlegroups.com>,
Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
>54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.
>
>(The 21st by UTC, though.)
>
>I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

(Hal Heydt)
I was a college student working in the Federal Summer Employment
program (specifically, running cards through various IBM machines
in the Naval Supply Center in San Diego). I got a paid day off
work in honor of the Moon landing. About the only nice thing
Richard Nixon ever did for me.

On 20/07/23 17:22, Kevrob wrote:
> 54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.
>
> (The 21st by UTC, though.)
>
> I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
>

I can't remember much detail other than watching it in a movie theatre
in Dunedin, Aotearoa. Alcohol had temporarily replaced Science Fiction
at that stage of teenage youth. We had no TV.

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 1:22:15 AM UTC-4, Kevrob wrote:
> 54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.
>
> (The 21st by UTC, though.)
>
> I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

I was 12 too. My family lived in England at that time,
and I stayed up late to watch the landing, and was later
woken to watch the 'small step' at about 3 AM.

I peered at the low contrast, low res B&W image, and had
a lot of trouble parsing it - is that the whole astronaut?
Is that just his leg? I knew that LEM and the whole mission
better than most of the commentators, but couldn't really
see what was happening at the start. Later on, it was a lot
clearer.

My parents went back to bed after an hour. I stayed up till
dawn.

pt

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 8:46:29 AM UTC-4, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 1:22:15 AM UTC-4, Kevrob wrote:
> > 54 years ago, today, Neil Armstrong set foot on Luna.
> >
> > (The 21st by UTC, though.)
> >
> > I was 12, the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
> I was 12 too. My family lived in England at that time,
> and I stayed up late to watch the landing, and was later
> woken to watch the 'small step' at about 3 AM.
>
> I peered at the low contrast, low res B&W image, and had
> a lot of trouble parsing it - is that the whole astronaut?
> Is that just his leg? I knew that LEM and the whole mission
> better than most of the commentators, but couldn't really
> see what was happening at the start. Later on, it was a lot
> clearer.
>
> My parents went back to bed after an hour. I stayed up till
> dawn.
>
>

Grumman, (now Northrup Grumman) is 30 miles west of where I grew up.
Almost everyone in our area was extremely proud that the lunar lander
was a local product. One of my cousins had married an actual rocket
scientist. They lived in Huntsville, AL, but visited my aunt's beach house
every summer. Between those space related situations and the nearby
Brookhaven National Laboratory, we really felt as if we were Living In The
Future! I fondly remember my buddy John S having his birthday party at
the Olympic size indoor pool on the BNL grounds.

--
Kevin R