Submitted June 23, 2005, 9:09 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I watched the moonwalk while I was a postgrad student in Melbourne, Australia. There was 12 inch TV in the International Student residence and we probably had about 30 people (and nearly as many nationalities) packed into a small room. There was an interesting local slant to the day because for a large part of the time, signals from Apollo could only be picked up by receivers in Australia. The movie 'The Dish' tells a nice story about the panic they had when a fuse blew just before the walk, with the whole world waiting for the pictures!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
At the time, it seemed to have more to do with a can-do attitude and the positivity of the early Kennedy administration. The Cold War competition was not such a big deal at the time of the wlk.
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Reading the comments on these webpages, I have been struck by how many of the correspondents were only very young at the time. I hope future generations can find their own events as inspirational as the moonwalk clearly was for many people.
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Google search on 'Moonwalk'
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Submitted December 6, 2004, 2:47 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a young girl (just turned 4) at the time of the Moonwalk. My Dad, a career Navy man, was home that particular day and he made me watch the moon landing and then the Moonwalk. I believe I remember this so very well because I was mad as all get out to have to watch some man walk on the moon and miss seeing _Captain Kangaroo_. While I don't actually remember seeing man walk the moon for the first time, I do remember the temper tantrum I threw. I do remember watching it on a little black and white TV and we were living in Groton, CT at the time.
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I found this while surfing the web.
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Submitted November 30, 2004, 1:18 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
As an eight year old boy I was the perfect age to be captivated by men on the moon, my friends too, that summer we were amazed by little else. We built models of the Saturn 5 rockets and lunar modules, learned everything we could get our hands on and became little space experts, happily correcting any grown-up that didn't know what they where talking about.
I watched the landing at home with my mother. I clearly remember sitting on the floor, up close to our TV, watching the Eagle lunar module land, and later Neil Armstrong slowly stepping down from the module steps and say, "That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind", then my mother burst into tears, and I knew, even then at eight years old, that I was very privileged to be a witness of one of the biggest technological events in history.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
After the Soviet successes of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, the USA was forced to respond by upping their stakes of the space race a hundred fold. The last technological adventure left on earth was to be first to the moon. This attempt was only possible because of the technological advances gained from the second world war. The moon-shot had become a political opportunity to beat swords to plowshares, and in 1969 the whole world joined in.
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There is a big life lesson in knowing that most of the human world has functioned successfully since before anyone today was born, it is a fact that can be hard for young people to swallow. Indeed, for lunar conspiracy theorists the idea of landing men on the moon seems so implausible that the only logical alternative must be that, "It was all staged!". I find that most lunacists (lunar conspiracy theorists) tend to be born after 1969.
When I speak to lunacists, we go through the usual, then at last I remind them of one fundamental point, that during the Apollo landings, the USSR and the USA were in the middle of an unprecedented cold war, that if the Soviets could have found anything 'Fishy' they would have been more than willing to blow the whistle on the USA. The lost reputation of the USA would then have converted easily into much needed reputation for the USSR. The Soviets had the motivation, the technology and they were there at the time, to monitor the Apollo missions with extreme interest, tracking the missions as they left earth's orbit, traveled to the moon, went into orbit around the moon, the separation of the lunar module from the command module, the landing and eventual return back to earth. Perhaps the lunacists should ask the Russians what happened in history. Ironically, when we go back to the moon and find the footprints and artifacts, the lunacists will continue to be unconvinced, "The return to the moon was also a conspiracy!".
Then there will be Mars, and all the yet to be born 'martian conspiracy theorists'.
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Submitted September 19, 2004, 11:54 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a little boy, 4 years old. My father took me out of the bed on an hot summer night, it was 3 o´clock in the morning in Germany (July 21st).
I see the pictures on a black & white screen and was wondering about that, what was going on there, outside from Earth on the Moon.
As Neil A. Armstrong was set up his first feet on the Moon and spoke his words, I can´t remember at the age of 4, whats going on there. So - I was sitting on the chair. At the age of 6, I was watching all flights to space. And at this time, I was thinking about, that we live now in an decade, where mankind can walk on the moon. I remember Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon in December 1972. And I was wondering, why nobody was flying to the Moon since there.
Since this time, I was space-infected. My father must tell me storys about Astronauts on the Moon, and in my head there were a lot of storys about flying in space. I was modelled several models from Revell, big Saturn V was standing in my Room, and I was playing with this things, included complete Moon Missions at special timelines.
I never lost this thinkings since this days. And I hope, that someone will think about this time, to fly back to the Moon and beyond. As Dave Scott (Commander Apollo 15) said: "Man has to explore", we have to explore whats going on there, outside our mother Earth. Because, this is the only chance to see, what is behind this "silver curtain", and anything belongs together. We can´t live without the Universe, and we all live on the same planet. We have a contract with Earth, and I hope, that space-exploration will help us for future, to understand some things.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
At first: to be the First. Political aspects are in the foreground, and also to fullfill John F. Kennedys dream. But, the scientific goals are also there, to find out - what is the Moon and where did he come from.
Nobody has at the beginning of the Space-Age hard facts, how to put a man on the Moon. And Americans said: We will do it. Why not?
United States where the onlyiest country in the world, who have the budget to serve this experience. 20 Billion of Dollars was a lot of money. The Russians try to do the same, but their things at the end of the road, did not functionated. Before, they have many successfull missions (first flight of a man into space, first 2-manned space-ship, first space-walk, first docking in space), but after that, nothing was happened with the Moon flight. So, the Americans have had their noses in front, and so they have an effort.
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Encyclopedia Astronautica from Mark Wade
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Submitted November 2, 2003, 10:12 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
"I was just 8 years old, but I knew everything about the Apollo space missions. When some relatives did visit us, my folks would ask me to perform "my routine", which consisted on explaining from heart to those relatives every detail of the trip, from the Staurn V rockets to the Eagle module, to the activities Michael Collins would have to perform while Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong walked on the surface and he stayed alone orbiting the Moon. It was not a funny routine, it was informative, and 100% accurate. Indeed, it made me look more like Walter Cronkite and less like Woody Allen. I am from Caracas, Venezuela, and I remember that Shell gas stations did have a special "space" promotion: They gave away a special "album" (a cardboard with some pre-cutted circles) and you had to fill that album with some special conmemorative plastic coins of the space race. The last "coin", of course was the Apollo 11. And to get the coins my dad had to fill the tank at Shell. Well, my other recollection was the transmission thru TV here in Venezuela. I will never forget a very picturesque journalist (he's still alive today) screaming all the time "¡Hombre en la Luna! ¡Hombre en la Luna!" ("Man on the Moon! Man on the Moon!") during all the transmission. The signal was in black and white. But my remembrances of it are in silver and gold, and will never be erased from my mind!
Carlos Sicilia
Caracas, Venezuela
csicilia@hotmail.com
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because of a mixture of geopolitical and scientific reasons. The geopolitical reason: to beat the Russians. The scientific reason: to test the technological capabilities of the United States.
Carlos Sicilia
Caracas, Venezuela
csicilia@hotmail.com
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Thanks for this wonderful idea. It's incredible to remember that again and to have a place like this to share those memories! Thanks again and again!
Carlos Sicilia
Caracas, Venezuela
csicilia@hotmail.com
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Submitted October 16, 2003, 10:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
On this day I was in combat. I was invloved in a "minor" battle that lasted 1 1/2 days. I put minor in quotes because this battle didn't mean much to the rest of the world. But it meant a lot to those that were there that day ( on both sides) .
About a 3 or 4 days after the event I learned of it. I was reading the article with one hand as I stripped off my clothes so that I could take my 1st shower in 2 weeks.
I was very proud of our astronaunts.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because it is the door step to inner space and therefore a bit closer to the mysteries that are inner and oter space.
Because we could.
Because John F. Kennedy said that we would.
Because it needed to be done.
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When I was a kid I dreamed of a trip to space. Not Sci-Fi, the real McCoy. I hoped that our space exploration would grow by leaps and bounds after the Moon landing. I have been somewhat disapointed since that time. I am thrilled everytine that there is a lift off. And I am crushed when we have a failure.
Space expolration is a risky busness. I would still go but since I am 54 years old I doubt it I will make it to orbit. But I am pulling for those brave souls who go. ( From every nation).
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Submitted October 9, 2003, 5:48 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Our family never missed a launch or a splash down of any of the space missions. We always sat about two feet from the television set completely enthralled by Walter Cronkite's every word. By the time of the lunar explorations I was 14 and had seen the space program develop from infancy. I memorized the simulations from launch to landing as scientists and journalists described these historic events over and over again. When Neil Armstrong finally stepped down onto the lunar surface, my mother and I cried. What a site!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I never paid attention to the politics of the space race until I was much older. I was always caught up in the awe of discovery and exploration. I understand now how the space programs in both the Soviet Union and the United States were trully political posturing but then, it just didn't matter.
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I have always remembered the story my grandmother told me about the Mercury flight of Gordon Cooper. While he was orbiting the Earth, the city of Shawnee, OK--home to Gordon Cooper and my dad's family--left all of their lights on throughout the night in hopes that he would be able to see his home town. I couldn't fathom it then, but the satellite pictures of America lighted by night always bring that story to mind. Maybe Cooper really did see that small city aglow below him.
The seeds of aerospace planted in the 60's have stuck with me over the years as I have shared those adventures with my students in the classroom. Attending aerspace workshops, camps, and professional development opportunities over the years, I hope I have given my students a taste of what space exploration has been and will continue to be.
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Submitted October 8, 2003, 9:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I can remember coming inside from picking raspberries in the garden and watched the graining images coming from the tv. Since VCR's were unheard of and you couldn't get a decent picture with 8mm film at the time we tape recorded it. I don't know what for, I guess at the time it was one of the bigger things that had ever happened. I remember the tv covereage of the people around the world and at Disneyland, the world of tomorrow exhibit.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because we weren't going to be second to any other country. John Kennedy said we were going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and public sympathy made it so.
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Submitted October 7, 2003, 8:59 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
When man walked on the moon, I was babysitting two cousins in the Pruitti Igoe projects in St. Louis Missouri. While this historic event was taking place I learned the irony in the fact that the building across from me someone had yet again set fire to the laundry mat on it's 13th floor.
Awe and destruction happening at the same time; the haves walking on the moon while the have nots are destroying property and dreams.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The United States put a man on the moon because we wanted to top the Russians. Sputnik made a lot of people unhappy so the U.S. wanted to prove to the world that we could meet the challenge to be in space first.
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Submitted October 6, 2003, 11:41 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was at a cottage on a lake, without television, when men landed on the moon. I wasn't impressed by the news on the radio. Like many other things, something that, from years away, seems exciting, becomes dulled by the years of step-by-step progress. In July of 1969, I was preoccupied with the war in Vietnam. A moon landing wasn't very important in comparison.
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Submitted June 13, 2003, 1:03 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
1. Feeling like I was suddenly thrust into the 21st century with Walter Cronkite, that the dream of 2001 would actually precipitate.
2. Looking at the crecent moon on July 20, 1969 as those two were actually walking on it (captured on Kodak film).
3. First time not sleeping in over two days.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Primarily cold war politics - all people have bold curiosity, but not the bank account available for impressive acts.
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I believe that the moon landing was the pinnacle of human achievement - as if the moment was transplanted from the next century. Now that we are actually IN the "next" century, well, I may have to reconsider.
I believe that it'll be a terribly long time before such an age will be upon mankind again.
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Bumped into it during researching the Sloan Foundation
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Submitted June 3, 2003, 4:50 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was extremely young when the first moon walk occurred (I was 4 and a half). However, I remember it because my parents were so excited. They---who never watched television---had the entire family (my two older sisters and brother) sit in front of the t.v. I sat on my mother's lap and I remember her holding me tightly throughout the whole event and I remember the fuzziness of our tv (either the tv or the broadcast was done in black and white). My parents must have impressed this moment on me by talking about it repeatedly throughout the following years and months as it is one of my earliest memories.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I've always assumed that the main motivation to put a man on the moon was the desire to beat the Soviets. I am not sure when I first became aware of this aspect of the moon race but I know it was relatively early on (I was a child and I still remember whenever cosmonauts went up in the 1970s feeling the way you feel when the opposing time was up at bat---as my parents were extremely liberal and unlikely to have pitched the space race as a desire to beat the Soviets at any and all costs, I can't help but assume that this idea of a race was something which came through in the broadcasts and various space flights during the early 1970s.
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I was living in London when the 25th anniversary of the moon walk occurred. The BBC did a great job of showing clips and footage from the event---but from a British perspective. It was wonderful to see it from this perspective and to realize that the feelings I had abt this event were shared by people in other countries. It also made me feel oddly proud to be an American.
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Submitted May 30, 2003, 5:45 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
When Neil Armstrong took his historic first step, I was sitting in stop and go traffic between Cape Cod and Boston. I remember thinking, "sure, we can put a man on the moon but we can't find a way to get around down here faster than 5 mph." That assessment of our technology is as accurate today as it was in 1969.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
National egotism, with a course steered by a dead President.
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The lunar landing was remarkable and welcome news in the midst of a national calamity (Vietnam), but just think of what we didn't accomplish down here with all those dollars.
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Submitted May 4, 2003, 12:17 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I (age 13 1/2) was watching our new color TV with my parents and my 10-year-old brother. How I wished the live TV pictures from the lunar surface on Apollo 11 had been in color, especially as TV pictures from the lunar surface on all the subsequent moon landings were transmitted in color. By contrast, telecasts of the launch, splashdown, and broadcasts from the command module (which stayed in orbit around the moon) were in color.
Unlike the majority of Americans, who watched CBS' Walter Cronkite, we watched the moonwalk on NBC. Although Frank McGee was anchoring their coverage, I recall that he left most of the commentary during the moonwalk to his two expert analysts--astronaut Rusty Schweickart and geologist Dr. Harold Urey. I do recall that McGee did announce the time after the landing ("It is 4:17 P.M., Eastern Daylight Time") and right after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon ("It's 10:56 P.M."), possibly to add context to the unfolding events.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was at the time considered political, as America's national prestige would have suffered for decades to come had the Russians been first to land men on the moon. It was only years later that we learned how close they were to doing it. Were it not for the explosion of the Soviet N-1 rocket (which was the equal of the American Saturn 5 in size and thrust) during an unmanned test launch in early 1969, the Russians might have landed men on the moon a few weeks before Apollo 11.
Today, the moon landing is not remembered as a political victory, but as perhaps the greatest scientific achivement in history.
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I enthuastically followed space flights as a youngster. I looked forward to every launch and whether at home or at school, I'd be able to watch every launch and splashdown on live television.
I only wish home VCR's had been around as far back as the first manned Mercury launch in 1961. If they had been, I might now have a basement full of tapes of TV coverage of early space flights.
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Submitted March 7, 2003, 9:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
We were all gathered around the TV at my parent's summer house. We were the only one of our friends that had one there because for most of them coming to the lake was an escape. There were all the Smith's, the Jacoby's and my family.
I was sitting on the floor in front of the console TV, we were all so excited, like we were there with them.
We watched, mostly silent but the atmosphere in the room was just quivering.
When it was over I went swimming, I stayed under water as long as I could pretending I was floating in space, I did that for days after.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To be first, to see if we could and for scientific research.
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Submitted March 7, 2003, 4:59 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
July 20th was a special day for our family even before the Apollo 11 moon landing and the "Giant Leap". My lucky older sister is fortunate enough to have been born on that date. We lived in Montgomery, Alabama in 1969 and July 20 is always a hot and steamy day. I recall stepping outside the front door of our house after watching the afternoon landing coverage on our little 12" TV set and soaking up some sunshine as my chest swelled with pride over what my nation had just accomplished.
We made a special "moonscape" birthday cake for my sister's party that night. The whole family gathered around the tiny television to watch that historic first step by a human on another world. Sometimes, I had to strain to understand what Aldrin and Armstrong were saying as the TV speaker had to compete with the gnawing roar of our Sears & Roebuck window-unit air conditioner. The pictures were a little less clear than I had hoped for, but NASA was pushing those then new communications technologies to the limit. I was grateful to see the moon walk at all.
I was so overwhelmed by the excitement of being able to witness a major milestone in history, that I did not sleep at all that night. I watched TV until the local station signed-off (no cable or TV satellites in those days) and then I searched for distant Chicago, New York and St. Louis radio coverage on my handheld transistor radio. Finally, the paperboy tossed the paper onto out front porch. I will never forget the slapping sound of that paper. I still have that newspaper. Here is an image of the front page:
http://www.business.uab.edu/cache/greatday.htm
The special spirit of that day still lives within me and probably will be with me as long as my soul lasts. July 20th needs to become an official US day of commemoration.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The irrepressible spirit of exploration is wired into us. There is little doubt that the SPACE RACE energized America and the Soviet Union for the moon effort. Perhaps the moon landing came many decades earlier than otherwise might have been as a result of the Cold War competition. Our journey to the moon was inevitable however, and we are a changed race of beings as a result. The fruits of Apollo are just beginning to be realized. The future will be an exciting time for those who are yet to be born.
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People can sign an Apollo Day petition here:
http://www.july20th.us
Visit my "space pages at: http://www.business.uab.edu/cache/
and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpaceADG/
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invitation from Joan Fragaszy
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Submitted March 6, 2003, 5:50 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Most people don't know or remember that the picture of Neil Armstrong desending the ladder was upside down to start with. "It is currently upside down on the moniter" is how mission control put it." I believe I remember the TV commentator saying that most of the people in the world were "standing on their heads right now". Of course, it was fine by the time that Neil made the first step.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To beat the Russians and because Kennedy had set the goal for us to do it.
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The moon program was the best thing to happen to this country in the 2nd half of the 20th century. It saved the 60's from being remembered as one of the worst decades in American history.
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Submitted March 6, 2003, 2:39 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was in my living room with my parents and remember the walk was scheduled for July 21st. I was excited that they were early which meant they would first walk on the moon on my 12th birthday.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Essentially, to win the space race. President Kennedy had issued the challenge to get a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade and the can do American attitude completed the mission.
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It remains a fantastic achievement and evidence that anything can be achieved with determination and those who will take risks.
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Submitted March 5, 2003, 8:37 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Although I was only 6 years old at the time, I can clearly remember watching the moonwalk on our TV. We had extra reason to pay attention to it, for we lived near Houston and the Manned Spacecraft Center, and my father worked for NASA. He was a software developer and helped write the software that allowed the spacecraft to rendezvous in orbit. But I wasn't aware of that then; all I knew was that this was one big event, perhaps the biggest thing ever. And at 9:56 PM Central time on July 20, I was watching CBS with my mom and dad (I don't remember if my 2-year-old sister was awake), being amazed by the fuzzy black & white images coming from the moon. I'm not sure if I stayed awake for the whole event, but I definitely remember the flag being planted on the lunar surface.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The main reason was to do it before the Soviets did. Sure, we got some wonderful and invaluable scientific data, but the main motivation was national pride. And once we got there for the first time, much of the support for the moon program vanished. It's unfortunate that it happened that way, for I believe that if we'd kept up our lunar explorations, we'd have a permanent base on the moon now.
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I hope we can find the national or international will to go back to the moon. We can use it as a stepping stone to Mars, developing the skills necessary to survive on extended missions. I'd love to see this happen before I pass away. I'd love to have my young nieces and nephew experience the thrill of seeing men and women explore another world.
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A posting to sci.space.news
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Submitted March 3, 2003, 10:29 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
To remember the moon walk, I had to remember my mother standing in the kitchen amongst shattered dishes she had dropped the day Kennedy was assassinated. It was my first memory that I can recall, and she turned to me and said you can be anything, just don't be president... I asked if I could be an astronaut.
I had never been up after 10:00pm in my whole life, but my father and mother woke my brothers and I to watch television and Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon. Walter Cronkite looked as if he would burst, amazed, and breathless, "The Eagle has landed." My brothers went back to bed, but even though I was the youngest, I couldn't stop looking at the bug on the moon, the Eagle on a dead world, and when Neil Armstrong stepped down that ladder, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..." I think my heart stopped. I wanted to be him, and from Wapakaneta, just up the road from my hometown, you could hear the cries for their native son, and our now national hero, the first man on the moon. I stayed up until my mother made me go to bed, it was daylight by then, and she didn't let me sleep long, but since that day I have always looked at the moon and thought to myself, "...one day, perhaps..."
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
In addition to the achievement of being first, there were many political aspects to the cold war, the most notable being the space race, because it's successes and failures were so very public. It's hard to hide an exploding rocket as it races into space. Ultimately, the politcal aspect weakened, and the scientific aspect intensefied, however, even today, politics and budgets drive our exploration and experimentation of space, and I believe we have fallen behind our ability in persuing the unknown....
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Submitted February 6, 2003, 5:23 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was twelve at the time. I was spending the summer at Boy Scout camp somewhere in New Jersey I think. It was a horrible rainy summer. The only bright spot was Apollo 11. Those ghostly B&W images -- it took a few seconds to figure out what you were seeing -- were just about as amazing as you could think. Watching it was maybe like what watch the first television transmissions ever felt like. We sat in a tent with a jury rigged antenna trying to get a decent picture -- I can totally feel the sense of pride I felt that day even now.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Well, obviously the cold war/space race had a lot to do with it. But I tend to believe that we were fulfilling a destiny which began with the earliest explorers. Man needs to reach out -- it's a part of our psyche. If that wasn't true, we'd all still be living in some small part of Africa.
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I hate saying it but I think Humankind isn't ready to journey beyond Earth any more ... we've lost sight of what's important, how to take care of our own planet, how to become something bigger than we are today. We showed promise 25 years ago, and I have hope for future generations, but for the time being, until we find some real leadership, we'll have to live vicariously through whatever scaled back planetary missions Nasa can squeeze out on it's miserably small budget.
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Name
Submitted September 28, 2002, 11:49 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I don't really have a personal memory of the moonwalk, since I was only 8 months old at the time. But it was something that clearly affected my parents deeply. As child I was told often about how amazed and proud and stunned they were to see it. My dad took pictures of the little black & white TV screen and of mom holding me up to see the TV. They still have those pictures somewhere, I hope!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Now, of course, I understand about the Cold War and the space race. But growing up in Houston, I think we viewed the moonwalk and the space program in more absolute terms: it was about progress and science and exploration and American ingenuity, and only incidentally about beating the Soviets.
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I'm amazed at how much we take for granted now. In college I roomed with the daughter of a "NASA-nerd"--a program control engineer. Every once in a while she'd call home to find her dad totally fatigued, the family's schedule disrupted, and everybody stressed out. "Shuttle's up," she'd say...but often we hadn't heard anything in the news! Ten years on, it seems we're even more blase, but we benefit from space-based research and engineering every day.
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Name
Submitted September 21, 2002, 2:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I loved everything about it. I was 9 years old. My brother and I made cardboard models of the landing module. We watched the landing on our huge black and white floor model t.v. I also remember waiting in a doctors office with my mom early that day, and the adults were speculating about what would happen when we landed on the moon. Most thought it was a wonderful endeavor. Others thought the world might end because we really were supposed to stay on earth and not venture out like that. I remember one person said that the moon might turn to blood. As a 9 year old, that was a scarey thought.
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Name
Submitted August 30, 2002, 1:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember being at my grandmother's house when Neil first stepped on the lunar surface. I was only 7 years old at the time. I had total control of her 20 inch floor model black and white TV.
I remember wishing that the TV picture was clearer, because I wanted to see the lunar surface myself. The images of the astronauts jumping around seemed to have a ghostly appearance, because of the limitations of camera technology. I was fascinated at the way they had to hop to get around.
Even at age 7, I was elated to see them land successfully.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was more for the worldly status of being the first to land than it was for scientific knowledge, that was more a byproduct of the mission. I didn't know that when they landed, but came to that realization years later.
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I just remember that even at age 7, I knew that the first landing on the Moon was a momentous event.
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Name
Submitted August 16, 2002, 10:41 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was about 13 at the time. I remember watching it on TV, but didn't really understand the scale of it until I got older. I remember listening to the News with Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra explaining what was happening. Then, finally the pictures as the Lander touched down. That was great.
It was an incredible time. Then when I joined NASA at one point, I really got to understand the amount of work that was put into bringing that to fruition and am still amazed today. But the men at that time were pretty special. I wish that time was more important today then it is currently.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It started out as a race between the US and Russia and then Kennedy said we would do it, and the wheels were put in motion for that. They succeeded but barely by 1969. When I joined NASA as a student in 1976, the wheels were nearly stopped and alot of NASA Engineers and Scientists were lamenting that this was the end. They were right, we haven't made it back there since. We may in the future though with another generation and greater politics as well as a President to support the trip. That is what it would take. Unless there is a strong Private Company to finance something like that.
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I am sorry that the Moon Landing has nearly been forgotten except by a few. There are still talks of going back to the Moon and Mars and we are still waiting but there is not the money. Congess is too tied up with Terrorists right now and war Universe explorations are far from their minds.
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Name
Submitted August 11, 2002, 6:31 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
From predawn to after midnight, my day (July 20) was saturated with Apollo 11...glued to the radio and TV. This was the day! Emotions were high. Anticipation was very real and alive. I was very thankful for being a part of the space program and the first manned lunar landing. It was a special day and I felt the spirit of the space program and Apollo in my heart and soul. The journey to the moon and the final moments to the landing was a part of my life I shall never forget. I was on the edge of my seat and soaking in every moment...very proud of America and very proud of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. Later in the night, I walked outside and looked toward the heavens and was thankful for it all. What a day!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
For many reasons. The greatest reason of all...it was a challenge; an adventure. It was the call of our generation that reached the heart and soul. We put a man on the moon because, as far back as I can remember, we were dreamers and we were willing to make big decisions and carry them out. Our character was real. The Apollo program was a prime example of who we were and what we could do. Our generation was a daring generation, and we moved in our own way. We made it our business to prove the spirit and challenge of America. The lunar landing was for us. It seemed very right for us to take up the challenge of space...even put a man on the moon. And we did it. Most of all, we exercised our wisdom and strength.
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Keep the dream alive...embrace the accomplishments of the past and meet the dreams and challenges of the future. We can't afford to pass up the many opportunities ahead. It gives me great pleasure to celebrate the space program of the past and share it with others. It was a fantastic experience that has touched lives. I am thankful to be a part of the generation that took on the challenges of space and the moon. We made it! I don't know where the dreamers are today, but the spirit of Apollo is alive for sure.
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Name
Submitted July 27, 2002, 11:01 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was watching the lunar landing coverage on CBS covered by Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra. Walter was (and still is) the grand master of covering the Apollo program.
Walter was getting very involved with the story as you could hear the live transmissions coming from the powered descent phase of the landing. The animation provided by CBS was quite good, and synched well to the story. I was also photographing the TV screen using color ekatchrome slide film using my astrophotography camera - it was kind of neat that the same camera I had been using to "shoot" the Moon for real was now "shooting" the Moon landing. I had photographed Mare Tranquilitatis before, but it would never be the same again.
As the last few seconds before landing ticked away, I think the whole world was collectively holding its breath....I know I was and so was Walter. I still remember the glee and relief when we heard "Contact Light", "Engine Off" calls from Aldrin. At that precise moment Walter wiped his eyes and said "Whew, boy!!!!" or words to that effect.
To this day I remember the TV screen flashing "MAN IS ON THE MOON". It still gives me goosebumps, even after all these years.
I have the original CBS News hardcover commemorative edition of their coverage. The endpaper is a 3D relief of the landing zone and the spine is emblazened with the precise date and time of Armstrong setting foot on the Moon: 10:56:20PM 7/20/69.
I, nor the world, would ever be the same after that.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The United States, under JFK, was engaged in a space race with the Soviets. The Russians had won the initial heats handsomely with the 1st orbiting of Sputnik, the first man in Space with Gagarin, the first orbiting of the Earth. We were playing catch up in a big way.
JFK made his famous "We chose to go to the Moon" speech in order to galvanize the country into a single mind set - "land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before this decade is out". When you think about it, our country has not had a singularly galvanizing speech and committment since then - not even 9/11.
JFK also wanted to leave his mark on history as being the President who got America to the "Last Frontier". He knew that no other goal would leave such a legacy for the future to marvel about. He was also very caught up in the adventure of manned spaceflight. He had several of the astronauts to the White House after their missions and he made trips to the Cape to personally observe what was occurring.
I believe the world would have been a lot different in JFK had not been assassinated. I think he would not have gotten us so deeply into the Vietnam War and the Apollo Program would have flown missions 18-20. It is also quite possible that if he had lived, he would have been re-elected and NASA would probably never left the Moon entirely. But, that is another question to ponder when we look at the Ruler of the night and contemplate the footsteps we left behiind.
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Apollo 8, with Borman, Lovell and Anders, was the mission that had the greatest effect on me. When the astronauts were reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve, 1968, while in orbit around the Moon, I was observing the Moon with my 6" telescope. Of course I could not see the spacecraft, but I could SEE the Moon very up close and personal. Hearing them read from the Bible, on Christmas Eve, with the 1.25 second delay, while photons from the Moon were entering my eye, was very, very moving to me. I was one with the astronauts and the Universe at that moment in time.
It was a feeling I have never experienced since - how could I? Man was in orbit around the Moon for the first time in history, on Christmas Eve, with a crescent Moon hanging in the Western sky and me watching and hearing it all live.
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Name
Submitted July 24, 2002, 5:58 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Like many at the time, my family and I were glued to the television watching and listening to all reports on the
moon landing. My father had a large reel-to-reel tape recorder and we spliced into the speaker wires on our TV
in order to record the audio on this historic event. I still own that tape. Even though the images being transmitted
from the moon landing were not the best, we all had the sense that this event helped to transport everyone on
this planet into the cosmos. We nolonger felt tied to this small blue ball traveling around the sun. This event only
helped to strengthen my career goal to be part of the space program in some manner. After college, I spent 24
years in the Air Force as a Space Operations Officer (one of a very select group at the time), and I am proud to say,
I am continuing my space involvement today as a contractor supporting military and civilian space efforts.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was the Cold War, and the US could not afford to allow the USSR to beat the US to the moon. The US needed
to clearly show that only a democratic country, and not a country governed under communism; could achieve
such a milestone in the history of mankind. We did not go to the moon "because it was there" or for scientific reasons.
Bottom Line: We had to beat the Russians! This was one space "first" the USSR would not be allowed to achieve.
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Name
Submitted July 23, 2002, 6:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
The Vietnam War was going on. I had just completed Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island and driven home to Louisville, Kentucky. I was staying at my brother's house and we watched the landing on television in his basement. What a thrill that was to see the landing! The picture quality was not very good, but good enough.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To beat the USSR. I would rather the reason had been to begin manned space exploration, but that was not to be. We needed a driving force and the Soviet Union provided it. I remember also the launching of Sputnik in 1957. I was interested in electronics and amateur radio. The air was charged with excitement and promise of things to come.
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With the moon landing, I had high hopes. Not long before, the Stanley Kubrick film, _2001: A Space Odyssey_ had debuted. I rememeber thinking how exciting the next 30 years was going to be. Unfortunately, we were more concerned with what was "inside the circle" than with what lay outside of it.
It is now 2002, and I am an amateur astronomer. One thing I can attest, the universe is a much different place than we anticipated.
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Name
Submitted July 23, 2002, 5:30 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was in Europe, in amsterdam. I remember coming into a coffee house of sorts and seeing the piictures. It felt incredibly exciting: we were out there, our first steps into the universe. Europeans were congratulating all the Americans. It felt great to being part of our next great adventure!
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Name
Submitted July 22, 2002, 6:00 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
As for July 20, 1969...
I was just a young creature from the "Blue Planet", watching and
listening to the broadcast... meanwhile drinking my juice.
Not until 1971, I started to collect all the fine (photographic) prints of the
Apollo XI Mission. The white rocket, the people, the lander, the rover, and those famous pictures of "The Earth" taken from "The Moon". I even bought the "LOOK: 1969 Year Book" about that event.
The music: Apollo XI
by: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (SUGAR TAX c. 1991)
"10... 9... ignition sequence starts... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
ZERO, all engines must Lift off!... We have a lift off!" (363 feet
of clean' "white" equipment pushed up into the blue sky...)
"It was beautiful from Here! (Landed on the Moon)"
"One Giant Leap for Mankind..."
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
"This is about CONTROL"
To demonsatrate the absolute power/control over the counterparts of the COLD WAR.
Bluffing or not, the event put the U.S. ahead of the U.S.S.R. at the time.
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The vision of "Space Exploration": a seed the late US President (JFK) would like to plant inside the American Society --- The possibilities of space travel, and the possibilities that "we" are not "alone" (in this universe).
"CONTACT" is posible.
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Name
Submitted July 22, 2002, 3:37 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 8 living on an Army base in Heidelberg, Germany. My family all watched the landing together, and my Grandmother was with us visiting. I remember how scared my Grandmother was (she was 60 something then)that something terrible would happen if man set foot on the moon. She was convinced that man going to the moon was agaist God's law, and that we would be punished for going there. I thought this was pretty wacky, but as I grew older I realized how someone of her generation and background could be overwhelmed by the rapid pace of technological change in here lifetime. Airplanes, television, computers, rockets to the moon, must have been a lot to absorb for someone who grew up with horses and trains as the norm for advanced technology. Her religious convictions led here to fear the unknown. Today, it seems that religious ideology has just as strong a hold on the ignorant and uneducated, both in the Middle East/Third World as well as the United States. While I am very pro-technology, and have built a career in the comnputer industry, I think that the continued advancement of technology will provide benefits to most societies, but many less-developed socities will be left behind and continue to be dominated by the fear inherent in religious ideology. It seems that people have not changed much after all.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 6:55 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
It started as any other Sunday, a particularly sunny Sunday at that. I had been looking forward to the landing and the wait for Neil Armstrong to come out from the LEM seemed to take forever. My eyes were glued to our black and white TV set... I stared at the fuzzy picture trying to make out every rock and 'reflective' moon landscape... all the while thinking 'this is going to be a big moment if not the biggest moment in history', then Neil was visible from the 'door' and started his descent down the ladder. There were pauses in between, thank goodness, because they helped me catch my breath. Then the moment came. The moon was finally reached and touched. At that moment (and some other memorable Apollo mission moments) humanity was one.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
At the time, it was for political reasons. But, without the drive and commitment of the men and women behind the missions, it would not have been possible.
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I couldn't help but think about my GGG- grandfather. He brought his (now obsolete) telescope and astronomy books from the o'l country. He passed his love of Astronomy on to his children. My grandfather used to tell my mother when she was a child, "You see that moon? Someday humans WILL walk on the moon". Those were the days when he would have been called a lunatic. When I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, I thought, with a smile and a nod 'this moment is for you too grandfather'.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 3:57 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was watching the TV with my great grandmother, who had been born in 1882 long before the advant of flight. As we sat there, and the Eagle landed, followed by the first footsteps on the moon by Neil Armstrong, I can remember marvelling at how much she had experienced in her life. How the technology had changed her existence so much, and yet she was still there, watching, interested and part of the future. I wondered with so much change in such a short space of time, how my future would look if I lived to her age...Of course in many ways not that much has changed, its almost like we have treaded water in manned exploration of space since then...perhaps its politics, perhaps it was because the moon really didn't have emuch to offer.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Pure politics...a testosterone delusion bought by Kennedy, followed by Johnson. In many ways, that win at any cost mentality serves to drive the terrorist forces today who sneak around and attack America, afraid to stand up and confront us face to face.
But we are lucky the Russians weren't trying to grow the biggest butt...Oh wait we have that title too!!
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 2:09 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
It was quite late. I had been sleeping when my parents woke us up to see what was happening. The picture quality was poor, but remember seeing Armstrong stepping off the footpad and giving the "One small step for Man.." speech.
I also remember thinking that it would be neat to explore the area shown by the camera as Aldrin installed it.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I beleive we did it to show that we could do it.
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I think that we should return to the Moon, and go on to Mars. civilizations that do no expand tend to stagnate and collapse.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 12:41 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was always into the sciences and when the announcement was made that the next lift-off was for a moon walk, I marked my calendar so that I'd be home to watch the hoped for safe landing on the moon. I was transfixed to the television, hardly breathing and listening to Walter Cronkite describing the event. When there was touchdown, tears came to his eyes and I cried as well. That is a moment frozen in my mind unlikely to be repeated.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was our way of showing the world that we can lead in ways unheard of by mankind up to that time. Beating the Russians, at that time, was as good as beating them in Olympic Hockey.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 9:20 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was an 8-year-old boy living in London, England. My mother called me into the living room to watch television. My whole family was there to witness this "live via satelite" event. We all watched in nervous anticipation as Neil Armstrong descended the LEM ladder and stated his great quote. The television picture was in black and white, the astronaut EVA images blurred during any fast movement. What stood out the most, was the alien way the astronauts moved and bounced on the moon. I consciously recalled that I wanted to remember this moment forever.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was in response to the early successes of their main political and econmic rival, the Soviet Union. Under Sergei Korolev's guidance, the Soviets space program had a technical advantage with serious military implications. The challenge by President Kennedy in 1961 to put a man on the moon was calculated to allow the U.S. space program time to catch up. Through the methodical baby steps of Mercury and Gemini, the U.S. achieved its' giant leap through Apollo. This event was another front in the "cold war" between the two super powers.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 1:20 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was working at a department store having just gotten out of the Air Force. Everyone in the store stopped what they were doing and stood mesmerized at the TV counter. In unison, we all let out a cheer.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
National Pride... to beat the Russians.
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Name
Submitted July 21, 2002, 1:01 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Done at paramount studio with studio effects.
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2002, 5:48 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
As the summer of 1969 began, I was most excited
about just graduating from high school and celebrating my 18th birthday on July 20.
Following the trips by the astronauts, whose names
everyone knew as the true heroes they were, was
something that everyone did, especially so for
those of us whose fathers worked at White Sands
Missle Range in New Mexico. When the "Big Day"
came, my friends and I had returned home from eating out and found everyone glued to the black
and white TV. Watching Neil Armstrong inch down the ladder and take the first step on the moon was
an extremely proud and emotion-filled moment.
That night, the moon looked just a little different in the sky, perhaps somewhat closer! I
still find moon-watching an inspiring pasttime,
as it is a reminder of what men can do when they
study hard, work hard, and dream just as hard.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The United States worked hard to develop the tech-
nology to be able to put a man on the moon to put
in place the dreams and capabilities of men for
many centuries. The success of Sputnik was an im-
petus for everyone in this country to get together
and make a dream come true---for all mankind.
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2002, 5:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
That night my family was traveling to our grandparents. We were in a Olds "Vista Cruiser". We had a small 9" B/W tv that plugged in to the ciggareete lighter. We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Atlanta and opened the rear in the parking lot. After a few minutes their were 40-50 people all huddled around this small tv watching this event. When Armstrong set foot cheers erupted and i can still remember this feeling today.
Ken Lunceford, Columbus Georgia
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
to futher our exploration of the moon
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2002, 12:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My most vivid memory was Walter Cronkite crying. The only other time I can remember this happening was when Kennedy was killed. My family had gathered at the home of my grandparents, and all sat together to watch. We were all in awe, and for someone who wanted to be like Alan Shepard, it was motivational to continue the dream. I still have that dream and one of these you will see me in an orange flight suit walking to that transfer van!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The cold war was on and no nation trusted any other nation. All were flexing their political muscles to show strength. President Kennedy wanted
desperately to extend man's reach into the cosmos. President Johnson was in charge of the Space program under Kennedy and continued his interest and support after his innaugeration. All things considered, in my opinion we went to the moon to stir patriotism. We had little to believe in and the US was suffering from a lack of unification. Kennedy, Apollo 1, Apollo 11, Challenger, and 9-11 all served to stir our patriotism in the midst of national tragedy.
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NASA is looking at returning to the moon, possibly establishing a moon colony there. I think this is a great idea. God has given us this cosmos to explore. To stay home would be a great loss.
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2002, 10:38 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
This was part of a series of ongoing events in man's struggle to discover his origins.
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Dear Chrissie,
During the 50's, I read about
either a World's Fair or A Space Exposition held in Brussels,
wherein a challenge was issued to put a man in space (or on the
Moon), I don't remember which. The article was in "Popular Science
Magazine".
I leave it to you to do the research.
As far as I know, that started 'the race'. Russia won points with
Sputnik, Kennedy demanded the moon, and we won that.
In the 60's I was a Test Engineering Consultant on the LM Vehicle
Ground Support Equipment under Project Apollo, and in the early 70's
I was employed by a company who developed part of the bio backpack
worn by the astronauts during their moonwalk.
I have many memories. I looked at your web site and was
disappointed with some of the responses.
If you are serious in your quest, or have any further questions,
please contact me directly.
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2002, 9:52 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I most certainly do remember where I was and what I was doing that night. It was a Saturday night, and my ex and I were having a barbecue--which we always did once a year on a Saturday night, having anywhere from 40 to 80 people there. By the time of the moonwalk, however, most people had left. The rest, about 15 plus my ex, our kids, and the kids of the other couples who were there, crowded into our small living room and turned on the TV in order to watch this historic event. I remember the words Mr. Armstrong spoke. I can close my eyes and see his foot descend from the step of the lunar module and land on the actuality of the moon. All of a sudden, there were fireworks and cheers all over the neighborhood.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The Russians had been ahead of the United States in space exploration, and we were playing catch-up ball for a long time. It is possible that the Russians, if they had been the first to land on the moon, would have used it to set up some sort of spy network or something of that nature. We had to prevent that from happening.
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It is at time such as that night, as well as in times of tragedy, that Americans show their true patriotism. It is important that we reach out to other worlds. It is my firm belief that there are other inhabited planets out there, and we should really keep trying to find them.
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Name
Submitted July 19, 2002, 8:43 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 13 years old and my parents both worked for Grumman Aerospace - one of the companies that worked on the Lundar Module. My parent's were both involved in programs related to the assembly of the module so our family had a particular sense of quiet pride in the moon landing. I recall standing in the livingroom with my mother, father, maternal grandmother (who lived with us) and my older brother - all watching the landing unfold on a black and white television set encased in a faux colonial style cabinet. When the first steps on the moon actually occurred my parents and grandmother all toasted each other with Rye highballs - while my brother and I lifted our glasses filled with orange soda - the strongest libation we were allowed. The lunar landing remains a vivid memory of my late childhood.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Display of national strength, technological prowess and determination and perhaps future global domination
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Name
Submitted July 19, 2002, 1:09 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was attending a concert as a sixteen year old with my boyfriend. The group playing was called Ina Gadda Da Vida. It was a way out rock group at the time. After the break, the group came back and announced. "They've landed on the moon!" It made the remainer of the evening truly sureal.
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Name
Submitted July 19, 2002, 10:38 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was five years old and I remember seeing the moon landing. I wondered why we were putting
a man on the moon. I learned later in School that President Kennedy challenged a nation to put it's ideas on
how to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's. The nation need a challenged since the Cold War
began between the US and USSR (Russia).
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
President Kennedy challenged the nation's scientific minds and prove that American technology was superior
to any nation in the world.
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It was not after the Man Landing did I get involved with TV show Star Trek, it got wondering what the future
would be like 300 years from now and for a while there got me interested in space.
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Name
Submitted July 19, 2002, 6:52 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember the ghostly images very well, I was eleven years old and was glued to the TV. I was concentrating so intently I was completely ignoring all around me. I remember having trouble trying to work out what was happening because I expected that once the LM had landed, the astronauts would simply open the hatch and get out. Only in later years through continued interest, visiting sites on the internet did I realise what was going on inside the spacecraft as I was watching all those years ago.
When Niel Armstrong made his descent down the ladder and then stepped onto the surface I had goosebumps running up and down my body.
I was absolutely, totally in awe of what was taking place so far away from us, and to be watching it live was almost unbelievable.
It is a moment that will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I only hope that generations to come will have the same thrill that I had when man steps onto new planetary bodies.
I am so proud to have been there as mankind's greatest achievement unfolded and I sat and watched history in the making.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Simple. The cold war. Completely a political decision. It would have been embarrassing for the US government to have lost the race to the moon.
In hindsight, we can see now that the Russians were never going to make it before the Americans anyway.
All the hype about man wanting to explore new worlds was never the intention of the government. It was NEVER going to spend any serious money on space exploration after it won the race to the moon. That's why the space program has stagnated to what we have now. The only exploration we will see from the United States will be done by robot probes. There is no public or political support for manned exploration.
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I would love to see a man set foot on Mars in my lifetime but I know it's not going to happen. It is too expensive and the political will is just not there.
I am hoping that the Chinese will put men on the moon within the next 10 years, as they have predicted, and maybe that will increase the interest of the American people enough to pressure the government into returning to the moon or even going on to Mars.
It is my dream that man will again set foot upon the moon soon but I'm afraid that politicians will always stand in the way of dreams...
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Name
Submitted July 19, 2002, 3:48 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 19 years of age and watched the whole moonwalk on black and white TV. I was on leave from the Navy at the time and sat with the family around the TV watching everything. It was just a fantastic experience - I think I really felt I was up there with Neil Armstrong.
It was a different day as I was in southern Tasmania at the time in a differnt time zone, but everyone knew this was something very BIG, we were watching history in the making.
It was basically, wow!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To maintain US technological supremacy over the Soviet Union and fullfill JFK's call to put a man on the moon made earlier in the decade.
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It is the evolutionary destiny of humankind to reach the stars. 1969 was a bold step forward in that destiny.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 11:20 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
A sense of overwhelming national pride.
Our black and white TV wasn't very clear but it was an amazing sight.
I also remember being frustrated as Walter Cronkite was talking at the same time that Neil Armstrong was making his "giant leap for mankind".
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Sadly, we now understand the political nature of the cold war with Russia. We went there because we needed to beat the Russians at something. They were the first to orbit the Earth (I can still remember seeing Sputnic.), the first to put an animal in orbit, the first to put a man is space, the first to do an extra vehicular walk in space and they were able to land on solid ground when they got back to Earth.
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It is kind of a shame that we beat Russia to the moon. Because of our nature to be the best, we wouldn't have quit till we could be better at something. Politicians would not have pulled the purse strings on NASA. I truely believe that we would now have people on Mars if we had lost the race to the moon.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 9:33 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
THIS IS FOR CHRISSIE BRODIGAN
I AM 61YRS OLD, MY MEMORIES OF THE MOONWALK MIGHT SUPPRISE YOU. I WAS AT A NIGHT CLUB IN MY MINI SKIRT TRYING TO GET THE ATTENTION OF MY FUTURE HUSBAND. WE NOTICED A CROWD AROUND THE BAR SO WE WENT TO SEE WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT. THE TV HAD THE MOONWALK ON, EVERYONE WAS SILIENT MY FUTURE HUSBAND SAID THIS IS A MOMENT IN TIME IN OUR TIME. THEN HE PUT HIS ARM AROUND ME AND TOLD ME HE LOVED ME FOR THE FIRST TIME. FROM THEN ON HE ALWAYS BLAMED OUR MARRIAGE ON THE MAN ON THE MOON.
JOYCE
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
TO KEEP UP WITH RUSSIA AND SEND ALL OUR MONEY TO THE MOON INSTEAD OF HELPING PEOPLE ON EARTH.
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I AM PROUD TO BE A MEMBER OF THE USA. I LOVE OUR FLAG AND ALL IT STANDS FOR.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 8:43 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 3 or 4. I remember my parents being very very excited. We all sat on the couch. I remember the television being very high up. My most vivid memory is looking up and seeing a man in a white suit bouncing bouncing bouncing around. I wanted to be there, too.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
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I believe this is the thing that makes us different from the other animals: among all other creatures on earth (as far as we know), only man has actually left his planet to explore another.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 8:16 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was working in a Boy Scout summer camp in New York state. There was one TV in camp and that was at the headwuarters trading post. My friend and I watched the pictures from the moon sitting at a picnic table on the trading post porch.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was a challenge to beat the Russians.
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As a 19 year old college kid, I don't think I fully appreciated what I was seeing.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 5:03 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was on the Hopi Rez, participating in a dance of some sort. (Was it Oraibi?) Didn't find out about the moon bullshit until I got back out to Highway 89 (the one from Flagstaff north into darkest Mormonia). I was drunk. The driver of a little, red, sporty convertible said, "Well, man's on the moon!" I said, "I'm sorry?" He said, "Well, man's on the moon!" I said, "I beg your pardon?" He said, "Man's on the moon!" I said, "What the fuck are you talking about. . . ." (And, in retrospect: Who cares?)
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 5:00 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My most vivid memory of the moonwalk was watching my parents reactions. I was shocked. We were a middle class Afro-American family and the confusion over how such a great country could put a man on the moon and still practice racism was evident. There was no anger just disdain and fear for the astronauts. The bggest fear was verbalized mainly as a diruption of the heaves. To quote "They are going to make something fall or the Russians will retaliate". The conversation became ligher with discussions of Sputnik. We were finaly sitting around as a family and discussing it as a scientific reak throug which led me to become interestested in Sci-Fi gyroscopes and computers in particular.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
First of all because they could they put a man on the moon, what better reason. Science needed to reach beyond its perimeters to grow and President John F. Kennedy and others knew this so well. This country has always been a reckonig force but it has always started with the best intents for its fellow man. Space and the universe may have some of those answers.
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Our intersts in the Universe have done more to bring nations together than most people realize. It did not begin with one person it began with all of us. Each step should be recorded for all mankind please keep up the good work.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 12:34 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Watching the event on TV in the living room w/ my folks & other relatives the summer before I went into the hospital for back surgery.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To Beat The Russians & maybe put a base on the moon before the Russians did.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 7:29 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was living in Tel-Aviv with my husband and three young sons. We didn't have a TV set, and we couldn't have seen it live from there anyhow. In fact, it never occurred to me that it was being broadcast live on TV. It wouldn't have seemed possible to do such a thing.
As the program began, I woke up my two older boys and brought them into the living room and we sat around the big radio because we could get shortwave broadcast on that set. The boys were 11 and 13 years old, and although they were sleepy and dazed at the time, this has become one of their most vivid memories. This was mostly because Mother woke them up for something she thought was special and amazing, but they couldn't comprehend why.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The main reason was to compete with the Soviet Union. It was like a contest. A matter of national pride. We couldn't let the "Commies" beat us. A poor second reason was to satisfy the human need for exploration and adventure.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 5:49 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I didn't have a TV so went to a friends house to watch it. We were in Colchester in the UK.
I was expecting my 2nd Child and was so excited I thought Labour would start. We heard a sound outback but didn't investigate. Turned out to be someone stealing my friends washing. By the time we went to look it was all over.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I have no idea but I thought it was a wonderfull thing to be able to do. NO WAY would you get me up there.
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It does seem a shame to have spent all that money and not taken it any further. I expected that by now there would have been people living on the moon. Oh well.
Perhaps we could one day send all the Terrorists up there out of the way and make our world a safer place.
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Name
Submitted July 18, 2002, 4:57 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was born in februari 1964 and 5 years old at the time of the first manned lunar landing. My parents wanted to see the live television-broadcast (at 4 o'clock in the morning Belgian time). Believe it or not but they took the mattress from their bed and placed it in front of the television-set downstairs! They insisted that I was with them to watch the screen. And thus it happened... I can't remember very much of that TV-broadcast, but I do remember the arrival of the Apollo 13 crew on the recovery ship Iwo Jima! (and I remember vividly the song "This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius"!!!). At that time, my mom spend whole afternoons watching the lunar excursions performed by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell of Apollo 14 and David Scott + James Irwin of Apollo 15! So I could say that my Apollo-virus is really brought over by my parents!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
We can't stay forever on the Earth! As David Scott of Apollo 15 once said at the Hadley-plain: "Man must explore!".
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I am an Apollo-freak and amateur-astronomer (I operate the telescope at the public observatory in Gent-Belgium). My advice is: let people look at the moon through a good telescope, and you will hear: "Gee! That's beautiful! I never thought it would be that big! Look at all those craters!". So, to spark their interest in the Manned and Unmanned Lunar Programs, let them take a close look at the moon!
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 11:56 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 34 in 1969, expecting my 4th child, and hoping it might be a girl. He was my 4th boy, and we decided to keep him anyway. I remember thinking I was too old to have a baby----Just one way that times have changed. My husband, 3 sons and I were at the White River Valley Campground in Gaysville, Vt.--- the little town on the White River where I grew up until I was 7. My dad, mom, uncle, and aunt owned the campground, and we had set up out tent in one of the sites. My folks lived in the main cabin where the office was located. We would gather around the TV in the evening for popcorn and drinks, and of course were all on hand to view the moonwalk. I doubt if the TV reception was that great, but it didn't really matter. It was a momentous occasion, and we were glued to the set, realizing this was a historical event that would undoubtedly change our lives and all those who would come after us. The moon was suddenly a tangible object that man had reached out and touched----not just the ever changing mysterious light in the night sky. In a way, it was the end of a fantasy, but the beginning of possibilities only imagined in science fiction. Now I laughingly tell son no. 4 that two fantastic events occurred for me in 1969----his birth, and man walking on the moon!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I guess I never thought a lot about this. My focus was on my family. However, since I did not have my head in the sand , I believe it was a dream of those who had the skills and knowledge to achieve it and were in a position to make it happen. I think part of the reason was the competition with the Russians in a time of extreme tension between our country and theirs. I think part was the desire of the man in charge at the time--President Kennedy. But being the romantic that I am, I have to believe it was something destined to happen because man's curiosity and determination to explore new horizons is ever with us, and will not be deterred.
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 11:41 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My memories are fuzzy. I was only five, but I remember my parents letting me stay up late to see the Armstrong climb down the ladder. My more vivid memories are from later missions when they would roll the TV into the classroom to watch the launches and moon walks.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The people of this country were caught up in a collective vision. A challenge was laid out, and the American People rose up to it. And just like climbing a mountain, "because it's there".
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 9:59 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 10 years & 3 months old in July 1969, I really fought to stay awake, when Neil came down the LEM Ladder, I remember seeing the image upside down for a brief moment, then it was corrected. I had three tv's on at the time, one large color & two smaller black & white tv's, I knew that it would be the same feed on the three networks, but watched as all three networks used their own animation to show various aspects of the flight. We watched CBS with Walter Cronkite & Wally Schirra, and I kept looking out at the moon which was to the west, and just could not stop looking & listening to the tv, and then looking at the moon. I remember some years back - maybe 1966, being impressed with a LIVE feed from San Francisco & New York split screen at the same time, but to look at Neil & Buzz on Television, and look at the moon at the same time really impressed me with technology, the images are frozen in my mind and the feelings as well. I watched the entire moonwalk, had all kinds of newspaper, and NASA pamphlets with me, and watched with awe, and followed the NASA timeline that evening. During school in those days, and those now frozen years to follow, I studied math, science, socal studies, history, but I also studied Spaceflight, and I can some 33 years later remember all of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apolo-Soyuz crewmwmbers, the nicknames on their spacecraft, the launch days, I even got to see some launches in person from Kennedy Space Center. Wow what a time we ALL had, remember Genesis from Apollo VIII at Christmas time no less, remember Jim Lovell on that flight saying "Houston, please be informed there is a Santa Claus" after leaving lunar orbit to return to earth, or Jim Lovell a few years later, the world praying for the crew of Apollo XIII - note the world, not just the United States, or Alan Shepard's return to flight and the Golf Shot on Apollo XIV, or David Scott proving Galileo on Apollo XV with the Falcon Feather & The Hammer, or John Young hot-rodding on the Lunar Rover on Apollo XVI, Gene Cernan & Harrison Schmitt on Apollo XVII "strolling on the moon one day", The crossing of my fingers (and biting my nails) for the lunar lift-off's, and the extended flights on Skylab, and the research. I understand they are still researching the data from Skylab (Conrad, Kerwin, Weitz, Bean, Garriott, Lousma, Carr, Pogue & Gibson), and finally to see Deke Slayton get his shot after being grounded since Mercury, what a way to finish out. What is selfishly amazing to this day, is me seeing the launches, then years later taking my daughter for her first launch (John Glenn's return to flight on STS-95) the same way my father had taken me to my first flight some 35+ years ago - yes history should repeat itself.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To complete the goal of our nation, which was challenged by President John F. Kennedy shortly after Alan Shepard's sub-orbital Freedom 7 flight in May of 1961.
We really got our act together technically, due to dedicated civil servants, and aviation companies throughout this nation. To reach the goal in about 8 years at a high dollar cost, and even more impressive was the dedication of mankind, their resources & hours worked for this cause.
The cost of three astronauts lives and their surviving families was even higher, I pay my respect to Gus Grissom, Edward White & Roger Chaffee for their service to this nation, and the astronauts who perished before them on training excercises, Astronauts See, Bassett, Williams & Freeman. For all of what we learned in Mercury & Gemini, we seemed to forget something, and through these Hero's, we regained ourselves and did make it to orbit with Project Apollo, then the moon, then the walks, and return safely to the earth. Too bad President Kennedy who would have been citizen Kennedy in 1969 did not live to see this happen, but I think he had the "skybox" on the Fifty Yard Line in Heaven, and perhaps helped a little while the Astronaut's were in Earth & Lunar Orbit. Oh I guess JFK had Gus, Ed, Roger, Elliot, Charles, CC, & Ted over for the missions as well in that great Skybox.
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Great spin-off's on Earth due to the manned & unmanned space programs, the spin-off's are being used in my reply such as the internet, and computers, the medical industry has had major successes due to spaceflight, and maybe if the right person can re-unite America, we could do it again, The Astronauts call it "The Spirit of Apollo". With nearly 140 manned flights, mostly successes, let us not forget the astronauts who died on the job, and let us not forget the pioneers who captured the world with their rocket jockey thrill rides, after all they have and always will have captured me, lets bring back The Spirit of Mercury, The Spirit of Gemini, The Spirit of Apollo, The Spirit of Skylab, The Spirit of Apollo-Soyuz & The Spirit of STS.
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 8:35 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
It was 5 am. All the Americans in this shabby hotel in Athens, Greece (except my mother) had assembled in the lobby to watch the one television in the building. I was 11 and I think my whole family would have stayed in bed if I hadn't insisted that I wanted to watch the event.
I was half-asleep. The TV was crummy. The reception was crummy. I could not make out the picture. I heard Armstrong's famous words and remembered thinking for quite awhile that they did not make sense. I don't remember any cheering from the crowd. I had to ask my father if Armstrong was on the moon yet.
Televisions were in short supply in Greece. Earlier that evening we had listened to the landing of Eagle in the bar of the Congo Palace Hotel. My first time in a bar. Four days before, we had sat on the floor of the Voice of America Building in downtown Athens, watching the Apollo 11 litftoff.
We normally lived outside Washington, DC. The baseball all-star game was in DC that year while we were in Greece. Missed it. I had wanted to go to Florida to watch the liftoff, but it was decreed we were going to Greece. So I missed the liftoff, too. (But got to see Apollo 15.)
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Only because Kennedy committed us to do it. Whatever his reasons were, the moonlanding was the product of this one man's decision.
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The Christmas-eve pictures from Apollo 8 were far more dramatic, novel, other-wordly, and awe-inspiring.
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 9:59 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember working on a Revell plastic model of the capsule and LEM. I sent most of the weekends before/during the mission listening to Walter Cronkite explain how the mission was to proceed. When they landed on the moon, I was in our basement with my whole family and two friends of the family. Everyone was excited, and everyone in the town (East Meadow, Long Island, New York) was excited the next day.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I was a true space age baby, because I was born in 1958, the year Sputnik was launched into earth orbit. The U.S. entered the space race in response to this event because of the fear that the Soviets could deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S. with the U.S. having no similar capability to balance the threat. There was also a great deal of concern about the Soviets being far more advanced in science and leading technology than the U.S., and this was considered another threat.
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After the first launch, almost everyone lost interest because it was not new, and we had already proven we could land on the moon. Many Congressmen felt funding should be used in other ways, and there was a war on in Vietnam. The ultimate disgrace was when the U.S. abondoned the Spacelab which had already been placed in orbit by the Saturn V rocket. The interest in the U.S. space program at that point was close to zero. I have never lost interest in space exploration and science. I became a degreed mechanical engineer in 1981. The U.S. space program has resulted in many techninolical advances throughout the world, and benefits in materials and medical research in microgravity can still be gained on the International Space Station today. Unfortunatly, the interest of Congress and the administration in space research is extremely low today. However, a space station is being built, and will hopefully be used to continue the scientific breakthroughs which stated with the early U.S. space program.
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 9:34 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Bring back the '60s, the spirit of Apollo, "We choose to go the moon, not because it is easy, but...
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm
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Bring back the '60s, the spirit of Apollo, "We choose to go the moon, not because it is easy, but...
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 7:25 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
this is probably going to sound pretty strange but i have an extra-special memory of that:
my father is a rabbi and while we were growing up we never watched television on friday nights and for those of you who remember the moonwalk was a friday night - now i was 11 years old and my sister and brothers are all younger than me but i remember that my dad started acting kind of strange and then he ushered us all inside in silence and we sat there and stared in awe at that old TV and i can remember it as if it was yesterday!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
i believe it was to prove our superiority over the "Soviets"
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it is hard at this time not to be cynical against governments and politicians and businessmen who all seem to be conniving to preserve power and take advantage of anyone they can who won't notice
and that world media is manipulated to a great degree to pull the wool over our eyes
on the other hand the whole NASA space program and its achievements as well as the fabulous and amazing international cooperation on the space station - being able to watch space dockings live on the internet
these type of things still manage to inspire an awe in people and make us believe that maybe somehow we can all pull together and help ourselves out of this mess
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Name
Submitted July 17, 2002, 7:25 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
this is probably going to sound pretty strange but i have an extra-special memory of that:
my father is a rabbi and while we were growing up we never watched television on friday nights and for those of you who remember the moonwalk was a friday night - now i was 11 years old and my sister and brothers are all younger than me but i remember that my dad started acting kind of strange and then he ushered us all inside in silence and we sat there and stared in awe at that old TV and i can remember it as if it was yesterday!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
i believe it was to prove our superiority over the "Soviets"
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it is hard at this time not to be cynical against governments and politicians and businessmen who all seem to be conniving to preserve power and take advantage of anyone they can who won't notice
and that world media is manipulated to a great degree to pull the wool over our eyes
on the other hand the whole NASA space program and its achievements as well as the fabulous and amazing international cooperation on the space station - being able to watch space dockings live on the internet
these type of things still manage to inspire an awe in people and make us believe that maybe somehow we can all pull together and help ourselves out of this mess
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 10:04 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
(I originally wrote this as a response to a similar question on "Physicians Online." Their question was: "Do you remember where you were when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon's surface?" I reproduce my answer here):
Response - Stephen Katz on 06/22/02 11:12 PM
Yes, I remember exactly where I was. I was in a motel room in San Antonio TX where I stayed for 6 weeks beginning 16 July 1969 while I underwent basic army military training for medical corps personnel at Fort Sam Houston, at the beginning my two year active duty stint as an "Army Doc" under the Berry Program deferral program. I had completed my residency and was (ultimately) destined to spend 2 very pleasant years at Fort Bragg, NC.
I remember my eyes filling with tears as Armstrong's foot planted on the ground. I called my wife who was staying with our 6 mo. old daughter at her parent's house in Wantagh, NY. She was similarly affected with teary pride.
My wife took a picture from behind our infant daughter which we still have. It shows the child's back sitting in one of those "hammock" swing-seats (which, along with lots of other good things has been 'banned' today as 'unsafe') and, in the distance, a 19" portable TV with the grainy image of Armstrong on it.
I was proud to be entering military service at that time. I held no truck with the 'peaceniks.' And the wonderful scene on TV only served to increase my pride in the worth of the country that I was serving.
Steve
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
1) Because it was there. (Isn't that why all good science is done?)
2) We were in a "race" to prove that "our system is better than their (communist) system." Kennedy did not pick a random goal when he specified "to put a man on the moon within 10 years" in his inaugural address in 1961. It had specific political purpose.
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Just want to let you know that I am responding to a request to participate in this study that was posted in the Bronx High School of Science's discussion e-mail group.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 8:39 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a very young boy at the time of the Apollo 11 landing and remember walking outside and seeing the moon and thinking, "There are men up there!" It was awe inspring. I stayed up and watched the entire moonwalk, not really understanding all that was going on or what Neil and Buzz were doing, but knowing that I was watching HISTORY and was a living participant in that process. At a book signing some thiry years later, Buzz Aldrin said that what was important about the moonwalk was not what was done or said on the moon, but the impact to the millions who witnessed it. I knew exactly what he meant. Godspeed Apollo 11!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
If one examines the actual historical context, it was pure Cold War politics. This in no way obviates the tremendous scientific and technical achievement. We were engaged in a Cold War with the Russians and the space race was merely another front to that war (Vietnam was another). It was a battle for the hearts and minds of the world. What kind of society could best utilize its national resources, talent, ingenuity, industry, and perserverance to achieve this technical miracle? That was the gauntlet John Kennedy threw down at the Russians, the world, and most importantly, the people of the United States. His speech of July 21, 1961 was one of pure statesmenship, since he knew he would not be in office when the landing was made. Sadly, he would not even live to see the fruition of his vision. American sorely needs statesmen and leaders in these times, not politicians. American's Space Program has been in search of another John Kennedy vision ever since Neil crunched the first footprint on the moon. Perhaps it was a rare combination of historical factors converging at the right moment that galvanized our society to achieve the lunar landings. There are those of us who follow the space program who openly wonder if we'll return to the moon in our lifetimes.
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I have met and talked with several of the moonwalkers and dozens of the workers and managers who worked in the space program. To a person they are absolutely baffled that this nation could spend billions on the quest to land a man on the moon and then in less than ten years let that infrastructure fall into ruin. We are as far from the moon as we were when Sputnik first jolted the nation awake in 1957. In the words of Flight Director Gene Kranz, "When did we become such chicken shit explorers?" Sadly, I see no vision for the future of space exploration. The shuttle fleet is 30 year old technology and yet I watch other countries like Japan and China developing the next generation of space vehicles. In the context of the national treasure and wealth, less than one penny of every tax dollar is spent on space exploration. I share the heartbreak of every astronaut, scientist, worker, manager, and engineer who poured their heart and soul into the great adventure and scarcely remember this historic moonwalk. That it is not a national holiday is a national shame. But there are those among the general population that will never forget what they accomplished for the nation and the world. This ordinary citizen would like to take this moment to say: THANK YOU!
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 8:14 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was one of the few people in Australia actually working at the time. My job was to co-ordinate the operations at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra. We supplied the TV picture of the first step on the moon to the rest of the world. But at the time my priority was to worry that everything performed and to be specially concerned about the backpack telemetry. Houston was far more concerned about that than the TV.
Some of this was portrayed in the movie "The Dish" but with a few inaccuracies. Look at http://www.pcug.org.au/~mdinn/TheDish for a more accurate story --- Mike Dinn, Canberra
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 6:44 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was only 12 at the time, but I clearly
remember being at my uncle's house in Brooklyn
with my whole family while watched the landing....
unbelievable excitement!!!
Late that evening, I was at my grandmother's apartment, and remember being
too excited about the moonwalk to fall asleep.
I probably dozed off a few times during
the walk; my sister, who was 10, fell
asleep after the first half hour.
I also vividly recall the phone call
from President Nixon to "Neil and Buzz".
I'm so glad I was just old enough to
appreciate the significance of the event.
I also remember running down the next morning
to buy a copy of the New York Times for what
would surely be a collector's issue; by
7:00 AM they were all already gone!
The events of 1969 were so special to me,
with Woodstock that summer as well, and
the Mets in the thick of the pennant race too!
(Of course, at the time, I didn't really
understand about American involvement in
Vietnam, and the political overtones of the day;
as a 12-year old, I was just having summer
fun and enjoying all the great music and going
to the beach!)
What a great time it was to be an American,
and a New Yorker especially!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The primary reason was to "beat the Russians".
Of course, the accomplishment itself was
staggering in terms of human capability,
especially for the time, but the ancient
dream of putting a man on the moon was
undertaken more for the purpose of firmly
establishing American preeminence in space,
I believe, than the fulfillment of taking that
"giant leap for mankind".
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I'm quite puzzled that 33 years after that
momentous event, humans haven't established
colonies on our planet's satellite.
Who would've thought at the time the moon
would be so quickly "abandoned"?
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 6:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was sitting in the main room of our summer cottage in Winsted Conn. My Dad, My Mom and I were gathered around our old Teleking 23 inch TV...waiting for the landing......My Dad and Mom were in awe as much as I..I mean they grew up during the era of the Wright Brothers.....It made our family so much closer......Magnificent !!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was more political than exploritory;we need to do it again to bring this nation and world together...
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Space needs to be explored..we have the know-how..lets just do it and going to Mars should be the grand next step..!!
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 6:02 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My most vivid memory of the moonwalk was the surreal nature of the whole episode. Watching the fuzzy white images moving about the screen working and talking about their experiences while being a quarter of a million miles away on another world.
My whole family was gathered around the television watching with an aura of non-belief in what was happening in front of us. While at the same time being so proud that America had accomplished such a feat first. We proved we could do it.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
We were in a race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was a politically motivated idea. We put a man on the moon to prove the United States was the more technologically advanced nation.
Kennedy needed something to boost the nation's spirit. Landing on the Moon gave this nation a goal.
Would we have been on the Moon by 1970, if there was no Cold War or Space Race? No. Even NASA's plans were to approach a Moon landing at a slow and steady pace.
It was a matter of the proper events fitting into the right time that produced the moonwalk. Something that has not happened since in our journey into the Space.
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I am sadden that we have not continued our journey to other planets. I feel that we have wasted a very valuable opportunity the moon landings gave us. We are currently just repeating what we have already accomplished.
Maybe Werner Von Braun was right about planning a slow steady pace into Space where the landing on the Moon would be viewed as a beginning and not the end.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 5:38 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was sitting on the floor in my parent's family room watching our small black and white TV. My parents and sisters were with me. I was so excited I couldn't stay on the floor. I was clapping and holding my breath hoping nothing would go wrong. I was only a teenager (16) and I was a great fan of the new television series "Star Trek" and couldn't believe I was actually watching live pictures from the moon. My mother would tell us when she was a child that the expression "that will happen when a man walks on the moon" indicated something that was impossible. Now man walking on the moon was a reality and so that expression no longer had any meaning. My mother said she couldn't believe it was really happening and wished her father (my grandfather) was still alive, who had just died a few years before. He crossed over the West from Indiana to Washington state when he was a boy of 5 years old in a covered wagon and she wished he would have lived to see the first man walk on the moon. She often commented on how much the world had changed from the time she was a little girl and she gave us a sense of watching history in the making. We were all very proud to be Americans that day and called our relatives on the phone to ask them if they were watching.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To demonstrate our technological superiority and because the Russians had put the first satelite in orbit, the Sputnik, only a few years before. The US government was afraid the Russians would gain the upper hand in space. My parents were very concerned about the same thing and were very relieved that the US had reached the moon first. They thought a moon-base would follow soon after the first landing on the moon.
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I would like to see the same push to explore, mine and settle the moon, Mars and the other planets and asteroids that happened during the Apollo era. Man's future in space and settlements on other worlds may mean our species' survival, especially if there are other threatening civilizations in space, or if there is a planet-wide catastrophy such as a hit by an asteroid or a planetary nuclear war or plague. Also, the technological advancements that come from such exploration will help to improve life on earth for many people, especially if it is through an international effort.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 1:59 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was an Engineering Student at Northrop Institute of Technology, Inglewood, California, (now defunct) at that time and keenly interested in the Space Program and majoring in Aerospace Engineering. I used my 35mm Pentax to record the entire televised part of the flight and moon walk, producing a large album of pictures taken from our black and white television screen. We would go out and look at the moon in amazement that people and more specifically American Astronauts were up there and walking around. We were proud to be Americans and as engineering students, who wanted to be part of the whole process (and thought that we would) we were even more thrilled. I was very disappointed when the massive political upheavals in America, caused the dismantling of the American Space Program.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Well, there was the more obvious "Space Race" reason for going to the Moon. But, taken by its' self that would not have been a sufficient reason for going. American Industry was in trouble as a result of the downsizing that occurred after WWII,
in Military Spending and something was needed to keep Industry and its people at work, as the war had done.
But, I think that the main reason we went to the Moon was because there were a lot of people who wanted to do that - not just all the engineers, scientists and pilots who not only thought it was a good idea, but also a large sector of the American population who wanted to go themselves! Such a massive program would not have gotten through Congress without the support of a large segment of the American public.
Americans are dreamers - always out there on the thin ice dreaming about doing something new and exciting, wanting to explore new worlds and new opportunities. That was the beginning of our Country and its best mainstay today - the freedom to explore new things and to create better conditions for everyone in the process. After World War Two, many Americans felt like they could do anything. The words "Yankee Enginuity," still rang on their lips - words that we have not heard for quite a while now.
The American Space Program was the largest single program that was ever done in America, consumimg the efforts of millions of people in many walks of life. And just about everyone felt like they were a part of it in some way - even f only as tax payers helping to foot the bill. And, they were.
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When the Space Program was curtailed for political reasons, in the 70's America went into the doldrums and in a way has never recovered. The idea that money spent on the Space Program should have been given to poor people was false thinking.
Giving money to poor people has never made them rich. Giving money to people has never improved the conditions of their lives. It only creates a Welfare State - a world in which people line up like cattle waiting to be fed and clothed, who are unwilling to do anything else for themselves.
Welfare puts people at EFFECT. Opportunity puts them at CAUSE. The Space Program created opportunity.
What is needed is not financial aid - what is needed is OPPORTUNITY. Opportunity is what makes people grow and shine, lick their wounds and go on to greater heights. What has been missing since the Space Program was dismantled has been enough opportunity to mobilize the entire Nation. In the years after the Apollo Space Program was ripped apart, a whole generation of graduate engineers and teachers languished in unemployment. The American Rust Belt formed and millions of critical industrial trade and craft jobs went away. Whole communities vanished.
The Grain Belt turned into the Dust Belt, as countless farmers, left their farms and homes to seek employment in strange and hostile cities, where crime abounds. In the wake of short sighted environmental legislation, whole industries, including the entire American Fishing Industry vanised into obscurity, while Japanese and Russian fishing fleets stood off of American shores reaping the harvest of our now abandoned fisheries. They were allowed to come in and fish the same waters that Congress had barred American fishermen from fishing - no fees, no licenses, no quotas, no lotteries, no permits - just come in and deplete the fishery anyway they wanted to. And, they did, and still do, today....
Today, our Natinal Economy is being undermined by greedy "americans," who take their business off shore and import cheap sleazy products which sell at prices that are higher than those of the same basic products that were originally "Made In America," a stamp seldom seen on products, today.
Our boarders are sieves to illegal immigrants who enter our country to work for unethical employers, who are happy to let them work for below poverty level wage scales and live in poverty so that they, the employer can be rich. But, they are not rich - they are rotten.
The American Space Program was the single most important thing Americans did after WWII. What the Space Program demonstrated was that there were other ways for warring countries to compete than on the battle field - constructive ways which paved the way to a better future for all. The Space Program was a true expression of what it means to be a modern American.
In all the years since the Apollo Space Program was scrapped, Congress has sold the American People "down the river" to Poverty, with its greedy preference for imported goods, and its miopic environmental laws, forcing America to become a "service" economy, with its ignorance of the legal psych drug epidemic in this country and its focus on the creation of a police state.
Few people are willing to admit that "psych drugs" are behind most of the violent crime committed in America - drugs like Prosac. We're jailing the wrong people.... We are singing the wrong song.
Anybody who has read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," knows that when a Country allows itself to be stripped of its basic industries, it will soon diminish in stature, as a Power in the World.
Without strong, vital basic industries, there will be a time when American will not be able to orbit a pop can, let alone send another American to the Moon. We'll be just another third world nation, struggling to survive under oppressive, suppressive governments and a newer, greedier class of ruling Rich who call themselves "Americans," but who are not and who never were Americans, let alone Space Pioneers, like the Apollo Astronauts.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 1:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
July 1969 I lived in Derby in the UK at the time and was training to be an electrician.
I remember the blurred pictures from the moon being transmitted on the TV.
The momentous occasion did not sink in at the time and it as I matured that I felt privileged to be able to see it happen at the time.
Since then I have developed an interest in manned space flight and read the accounts of the missions from Mercury to today’s shuttle launches.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I consider that the political position at the time between the USA and the USSR was the driving force behind the space programme.
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Without the USA the space programme would be none existant.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 1:24 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Here's a performance text I wrote about my memories of that day. It's an excerpt from a solo show about my lifelong obsession with space, entitled "The Night The Moon Landed On 39th Street".
************************************
ON THE MOON
by Dan Kwong
July 20, 1969. I was sitting in the living room of my Dad’s house in Los Angeles on a typically hot, smoggy day. Normally my three sisters and I would have been hanging out in his swimming pool, but that afternoon we were all transfixed by the pictures coming from the black and white television. A few hours ago Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the Moon, and now Neil was going to step out of the Lunar Module...
I was fifteen years old at the time, just graduated from the acid pit they called “junior high school”. I was convinced the transition from childhood to adolescence was deliberately designed to crush as much of your spirit as possible. But when I was a kid, I had very specific dreams for when I grew up: I would be a jet pilot. I would play centerfield for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I would run the Marathon in the Olympics, play clarinet for the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, and go into space. And in my home I was the underachiever in the family...
Well, the jet pilot idea died very quickly once I found out you had to have perfect eyesight. I had quit playing the clarinet; I was convinced it was gonna give me an ulcer. I hadn’t given up on playing for the Dodgers, but I was starting to get a glimpse of the ugly truth: I was good -- but not good enough. Likewise when it came to competitive running. Apparently I did not possess the Right Stuff.
Along with these less-than-thrilling developments was an ever-deepening sense of loneliness and isolation. I might as well have been on the Moon for all the human closeness I had. And I don’t mean that in a self-pitying sense. In fact I had grown quite accustomed to doing everything and anything alone to the point where, frankly, I preferred it that way. People? Who needs ‘em!
I remember Walter Cronkhite saying that, while Neil and Buzz were down on the lunar surface, Michael Collins was up in the Command Module orbiting the Moon. He was busy taking photographs, talking to Mission Control and waiting for Neil and Buzz to return. And each time the Command Module orbited around the back side of the Moon, Collins had no radio contact whatsoever with anyone on Planet Earth or his fellow astronauts down below. And during that period of time, Michael Collins was as alone as a human can be. Yeah...
Finally Neil was ready to leave the Lunar Module, that weird spidery-looking thing they landed in. It was originally called the “Lunar Excursion Module”, the “LEM”, but NASA was concerned about the “excursion” part sounding too unbusinesslike; too much like a vacation prize on “The Price Is Right.” So they shortened it to “Lunar Module”. It had been a nightmare to design and construct. Because light weight was so crucial, the LEM had been built with an aluminum skin as thin as a credit card. If you weren’t careful you could put your boot right through the wall! The rocket engine that would blast the astronauts back off the lunar surface was only powerful enough to work in the Moon’s weaker gravity, so there was no way to test it on Earth. When Buzz Aldrin pushed that button, it would be the first time that engine had ever been fired. And if it didn’t work, they were stuck! There were so many ways they could get killed, it wasn’t funny. There was absolutely no room for error.
Now the remote controlled camera outside the LEM was activated and fuzzy images started to appear. This is it. The first humans to set foot on the Moon. How many eons have we been looking at that glowing ball in the sky, wondering what it was, dreaming about going there, imagining what it would be like? And now, people were going to walk on it! WALK ON IT!!! The picture was so fuzzy and blurry... We tried adjusting the antenna, then the whole TV set, the plastic wheels of the TV stand screeching on the hardwood floor. Finally you could make out a couple puffy space suit-legs hopping down the ladder. Then Neil was standing on the LEM foot pad...
“I”m stepping off the LEM now... That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Omigod! There it is! On the Moon, baby! There’s a man standing on the Moon! He’s up there walking around right now! WHOO-HOOO!!!
Later that night my mother was only half-joking when she said, “It could all be fake, you know! Yeah, they’re not really on the Moon, that’s just a couple of actors in some warehouse somewhere. How do you know? It’s television. It could all be a big hoax!”
I looked at her. “No, Mom. It’s real. There’s someone on the Moon.”
Copyright 1999 Dan Kwong
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was primarily a Cold War political move, a symbolic statement to re-establish the superiority of capitalism over Communism.
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You are welcome to use this as you wish, just give me credit and mention that it is from my solo performance entitled, "The Night The Moon Landed on 39th Street". It will appear in my forthcoming book, "From Inner Worlds To Outer Space - The Solo Multimedia Performances of Dan Kwong".
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 1:21 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a away at camp when the moonwalk happened, we all gathered around a small black and white TV to hear Neil Armstrong say his famous words.
I still have a newpaper article from that day, that thankfully my Mother kept for me so I could see it when I returned home for Camp.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To beat the USSR in space at the time it was a race to see who could get to the moon first.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 11:24 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember the fuzzy video of Neil Armstrong coming down the ladder.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was to try to prove technical superiority over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. I can remember, as eight year old cub scout, the news of the Soviet Union orbiting Sputnik, a satellite.
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We tend to remember more vividly moments of tragedy rather than moments of success. Moments of great tragedy in my life include my parents dying, President Kennedy being shot and killed, the Challenger tragedy, and seeing the World Trade Towers collapse.
I have tears in my eyes now thinking about the World Trade Center.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 10:14 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was seven years old and stayed up all night to watch the moon landing. My father and Grandfather stayed up as well and we drank hot chocolate.
I remember watching Armstrong leave the capsule and then we went outside to look at the moon.
I lived in Stafordshire, England.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
At seven I thought it was because it was a really exciting place to go.
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Name
Submitted July 16, 2002, 9:41 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was only four years old at the time and barely remember much, if at all about the first landing on the moon. Considering it occurred late in the evening, it was probably past my bedtime. I do remember watching bits and pieces of other Apollo launches when I was very young, though.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It was a matter of national pride. After twice suffering the humiliation of being bested twice by the Russians at the starting gate of the space race (the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 and Vostok 1 in 1961), America needed some kind of a prestige project to beat the Russians at their own game. If the planning to send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth did not receive the highest of government funding priorities, chances are the moon landing would not have occurred in 1969, but years later - and that's if the Russians didn't beat us again.
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Name
Charles E. (Chuck) Corway
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Submitted July 16, 2002, 9:23 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Getting up at 5:30am on 21st July at age 10 in Melbourne Australia, to listen to VOA. 3 feet down, 5 feet left...contact... relief...
the waiting for exiting the LEM. The rest of the class at school (11:30am) applauding at the wait being filled in by a re-run of the Hillbillies... which annoyed me... and most not interested in the Moonwalk... yes, they've become lawyers, accountants, and MBA'd crooks...
I watched every mission. I remember January 1967... and the terrible news of the fire...
...I remember XMAS 1968 vividly.
I remember watching the moon on the school oval during sports, knowing there are men right now walking on the moon!
I remember
I miss those days.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
(i) To be second to no one.
(ii) USA superior to communism
(iii) Because it seemed Impossible!
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I long for those days.
I kind of relive them when I go sky diving now.
I created great technologies, only to see then destroyed by greed, and ugliness. You only meet genuine people in sky diving these days, and an inkling of the spirit of Apollo on the Drop Zones.
"We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is difficult, because that goal ... "... made us alive!!!
Happiness is found only in challenging ourselves!
Not in 5 star hotels and material riches.
Bring back the spirit of Apollo!!!
I want to live! I want to be happy!
Waszir
http://www.waszir.htmlplanet.com
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Name
Submitted July 15, 2002, 8:49 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I will never forget Armstrong's words as he set foot on the moon.
I was nine years old so I thought Aldrin finding the purple rock was really cool.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The race with the Russians speeded things up, but in those days before political correctness we could unite as a country and achieve this. Today Apollo would be scrubbed because we need the money for federally funded self esteme classes for k-12 and to put aids for the blind on drive thru ATMs.
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I hope my son can experience something of the importance of Apollo before he grows up. A return to the moon, or better, a mission to Mars.
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Name
Submitted June 11, 2002, 6:21 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 6 years old and living in Tokyo as an Air Force brat. I remember building (with much help from Dad) a Revell plastic model of the Saturn V and zooming around the house with it. I remember sharply watching part of the moonwalk itself on a tiny black and white TV. It made a very strong impression; I have very few other clear memories from that age.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Mostly as a means of geopolitical and technological competition with the Soviets, with a bit of pork-barrel spending added. Oh, those weren't the motivations of most of the Huntsville rocketeers or the rest of the workers who actually *did* it - but that's why the US Government paid for it, in the end.
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We did the right thing - go to the Moon - for the wrong reasons. And that's very sad, because we spent a lot of money, developed an astounding technology decades before humans "should" (in some abstract) have, accomplished one of the great historical feats of all time - and then pissed it all away and left the remains to rot on the lawn at JSC and Huntsville.
When I look up at Moon now, I think that the childhood promises I was made by Robert Heinlein and Arthur Clarke were stolen. There should be city lights across the lunar surface, human colonies in space, research bases on Mars, and expeditions to the Jovian moons by now. Instead we can barely get a few truck drivers into low earth orbit for a few months, and that at costs comparable to or greater than Apollo.
I want my future back! But it's not going to happen until someone manages to dramatically reduce the cost to get into orbit - because as Robert Heinlein said, "once you're in Earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere". I just hope it happens in my lifetime.
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Name
Submitted May 23, 2002, 9:59 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
It twas such an amazing experiment to see such a great step for mankind. All the guys were big hotties.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
TO beat the SOVIETS *rarrrrrr*
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Name
Submitted May 6, 2002, 12:04 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Watching Armstrong actual take a step on the surface.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because we could. Because major technology efforts like this drive countless spur lines into the imagination that form other projects that will keep the tech-transfer front, if you will, wide and alive and advancing.
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Name
Submitted March 12, 2002, 3:50 AM
Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
we have noting know about the moon because we never walk the moon
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Name
Submitted February 13, 2002, 9:16 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember watching it on NBC and the late news correspondent Frank McGee was NBC’s main man for the broadcast. My father took 35mm photos off the TV screen and my older sister recorded the audio on an old reel to reel tape recorder (These were the days before VCR's’) The images were decent considering they were coming from the Moon. The later missions television images improved incredibly and were crystal clear and even in color.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Sadly the U.S. went to the moon for political reasons a very heavy first and for scientific reasons a distant second. At the time it was felt that thirty years or so later there would be permanent bases on the moon and most of the planets certainly Mars would have been visited by humans. It was truly felt that the year 2001 would be just like the movie (2001 A Space Odyssey) in terms of space exploration. Instead the year 2001 brought us something much much different
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I’ve often wondered if the U.S. wanted to return to the Moon how long it would take them taking everything into consideration to include the designing of a rocket and landing vehicle (doubting very much they would go the old way with the Saturn V and Apollo-Lem Lunar rendezvous method) awarding of Government contracts, training of crews etc?
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Name
Submitted February 3, 2002, 10:19 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was thirteen and a half years old when men first landed on the moon. My maternal grandparents were visiting at the time. I remember my father, who was usually pretty hard to impress, telling them and my mother "We HAVE to watch this -- this is really history. This is really important."
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Mainly, because Jack Kennedy was playing a complex game of poker with the Russians, and Apollo was a huge stack of chips pushed to the center of the table. We won the pot, the Soviets folded their hand.
The result, though, was that, even if just for a little while, no human being alive on the planet with any access to modern media could doubt that there was *any* problem we humans could not overcome.
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"If we can put a man on the moon... why can't we put a man on the moon???"
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Name
Submitted January 31, 2002, 6:10 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I used to follow every Mercury shot as a 10 year old. I made a control panel based on pictures from "National Geographic" and put a chair on its back under a table draped with blankets. That was my capsule and I listened to the live broadcasts on my Japanese Transistor Radio with an earpiece strung under my white plastic space helmet. I was a star voyager, for sure.
By the time Apollo landed I was 15, sullen, and disaffected. I watched it, but probably didn't appreciate it. The family was at my sister's in-laws, who had a pool, and I recall coming in from swimming just in time to see Armstrong starting his "egress."
Today I'm more like the 9 year old: I look up at the moon and wonder if I will live long enough to see someone go back near Tranquility Base, or any of the original moon bases, I'm not fussy. That would be something. And I would pay better attention.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because we could?
Cold war politics created a need for a program, but I honestly think both sides were secretly excited to be in the race with real money. The ability to build those huge boosters and launch whatever systems they needed must have been intoxicating to many scientists and engineers, and I don't doubt there was a line of folks dying to work on any of the projects associated with it.
I once heard on radio that the Apollo program created so many new industries that its long term contribution to the economy exceeded any military programs. It may well be that programs like this are more cultural and economic stimulants than political or military investments.
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One image: the Apollo-Lander vehicles as a bright glint in space and then all that vastness...
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Name
Submitted January 30, 2002, 1:52 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I recall sitting under a table, wishing I could be ON the moon rather than IN the room. A violent argument had developed between my parents (my father objected to my mother talking as I remember) and I really would have done anything to be away from the situation.
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Name
Submitted January 28, 2002, 3:36 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Neil Armstrong going down the step and the famous words. The fascination of history being made at that very moment and in the context of other events in world history and my life at that time.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To beat the Russians originally, a battle of ideologies. Tagged on to this later were the other reasons such as exploration, benefits to mankind of what we might find there, beginnings of space travel and its perceived benefits…
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I also vividly remember as a teenager in England they landed about 10pm I think but no-one knew when the ‘live’ walk would take place. I was bundled off to bed at midnight by my parents as I was not allowed to stay up. But my Dad always had a radio on in his room when he went to bed and I heard an announcement saying they would probably walk at 3.15am our time. (He didn’t come in and tell me!) So I set my alarm and got up in the middle of the night, crept downstairs to watch the walk live on telly. So I saw history being made afterall and the others didn’t !!
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Name
Submitted January 24, 2002, 4:23 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 9 years old; my brother was 10. We, with our parents, were gathered in the family room to watch the moon landing. Wow! I remember my brother and I in our pajamas staying up quite late that night as the T.V. coverage continued. We could hear the crickets through the screen door, and the eerie beeping sound from the T.V.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Science and discovery; to prove U.S. superiority in the race against the Soviets.
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Name
Submitted January 19, 2002, 5:34 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
the us flag moving on the moon. Also seeing the reflection off the face=mask of the astroboy,s.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
because of the big pitcher of the war they were not the superpower that everyone thought they were out to be i thought there was no wind on the moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in fact it is a crock!!!!!!!!!!
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pleazzzzzz give me feed=back
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Name
Submitted January 18, 2002, 5:41 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
The Apollo 15 moonwalks with my grand parents, at their home, end july and beginning august 1971!
Dave and Jim were walking, jumping, digging, studying, sampling...There wre words such a breccias, anorthosite, rover, Hadley rille...
The most wonderful exploration ever.
I remember my grand mother being frightened when Dave stumbled.
I also remember the hammer and feather experiment: both falling simultaneously and slowly on the Moon!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To beat the Soviets in their own game
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Name
Submitted January 18, 2002, 3:18 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was twelve years old, my birthday having fallen on the launch day of Apollo 11. What a great age to witness that kind of history! Old enough to appreciate its significance, but young enough to see it through the eyes of a child with all the awe and wonder that entailed. I recall impatience as the moonwalk was delayed (it had been moved ahead of a scheduled rest period, then the crew fell behind in their checklists), and busied myself in front of the TV with my recently assembled Apollo model kits. Strangely enough, I don't recall hearing the "One small step" from Armstrong, but was awestruck a few minutes later as the words "Armstrong on Moon" were superimposed over the TV picture. That really made it sink in for me. After the phone call from President Nixon I left the room for some reason, stood alone in my bedroom, and kept turning one of Nixon's sentences over and over in my mind: "Because of what you have done -- because of what you have done -- " What they have done? Good grief, I answered myself, what they have done is enormous! I felt there was no stopping the human race in its exploration of space. Imagine my disappointment over the decades.
Those are my most vivid memories of the moonwalk.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To prove we were the most superior nation on the Earth. Science was a secondary objective.
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We need to get on with things. Going around in circles in low earth orbit may be exploiting space, no doubt, but NASA needs to continue the exploration of space. Leave the exploitation to private industry. The history of the airlines and NACA/NASA is a good example.
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Name
Submitted January 17, 2002, 8:19 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Those in our family were gathered around the TV, all but holding our breath that all would go well. I don't think I breathed easily until they astronauts were safely back. We'd no idea what to expect, what kind of surface they would find and weren't totally sure they could get off the moon once having landed. It was a bit scary.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
"Because it was there!" Actually I think we went
to the effort to place men on the moon because
Russia had outdone us recently in the space race.
This was something "ahead" of their efforts at
that time.
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Name
Submitted January 2, 2002, 3:54 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Atten: Chrissie (Brodigan??)I am a Bushy Park Grad of 1960 who happened to be living in McLean,VA, at the time of the moon walk. We had bought our first TV so that we could hire a babysiter occasionally to watch our then just two-year old daughter. As we waited eagerly for the broadcast the power went out and we were really disgusted. Fortunately the power came back on just in time to see the big event. It was hard to believe what we were seeing. Years later our daughter roomed in college at Ohio Univeristy with a girl whose father was from Wapakoneta, Ohio, the hometown of Neil Armstrong. The men were in Wapakoneta High school at the same time.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I have always thought the whole idea was a matter of national prestige. We had to keep up with the Russians.
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The space program kept a lot of scientists and engineeres employed. It also provided any number of things that have proved valuable for civilian life. These are rarely remembered as being by-products of the space program. On the down side, I feel some of that spending should have been spent on things closer to home; education and health care for example. I attended George Mason as a post grad student teacher in the fall of 1968. My husband is a retired engineering professor from the University of Akron. We live some 35 miles from Cleveland Ohio's NASA Glen facility.
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Name
Submitted January 2, 2002, 8:16 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was at the base hospital of Hamilton AFB, California, pacing the halls and courtyard in an attempt to "hurry up" the impending delivery of my second child. Because my husband was somewhere in VietNam on his second tour of duty there and this delivery was about four weeks early, he was quite unaware of my situation. Nonetheless, I recall clearly looking up at the full moon and thinking that I would never forget the "moonwalk" because of the concurrent birth of my child. Both events, therefore, of significance to me, although you may assured that the birth of my child rather outshines the other in the grand scheme of my life.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The U.S. put man on the moon for two reasons: (1) to prove to the world that the U.S. could conduct space exploration as well, if not better, than Russia; and (2) because all of humanity has always had a "curiosity" to explore and reach beyond the visible limits of the immediate area.
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Name
Submitted January 1, 2002, 1:08 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was working at the Manned Spacecraft Center outside of Houston Texas. I remember getting off work about 9 o'clock in the morning. I stayed awake until they landed on the moon. My phone rang and I was informed that the astronauts were going to step on the moon early. So I went back to work on a computer system that recorded, for historical look up, all of the biomedical data downlinked from the astronauts. What a day in my life!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Because it was a great challange and forced the US to make great strides in science and engineering.
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I found this web page in a newsletter for people that attended high school at Bushey Park, England.
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Name
Submitted November 26, 2001, 5:10 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My most vivid memory of the landing on the moon of Neil armstrong and Buzz Aldrin July 20, 1969 was to experience the happy cheering of a thousand iranians whom we had invited to the Binational Center (of the Embassy) in Tehran, Iran to participate in watching the moonwalk. as Acting Public Affairs Officer (of the Embassy), I was interviewed by Iranian television in my role as the host of this large audience.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Of course, our purpose in putting a man on the moon was to prove that we could do it, and incidentally before the Soviets could do so, not to mention the benefits of scientific study. We treid to share with other nations out triumph as a triumph of all the world, which sharing was reflected in the American and Iranian press. but most Iranians waved off this modesty and gave the U.S. full credit.
We later showed films of the moonwalk to many Iranian audiences, who were very appreciative. enclosed is a short article with captioned photo about this event, that appeared in a booklet about USIA in 1999.
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I want to tell you about a wealth of historical information on foreign affairs that exists on a compact disk of 900 diplomats' oral histories that is available to educational institutions and others from the Association for Diplomatic Studies and training. You might wish to acquire a copy for your Center for History and New Media. the disk itself for offline use costs $475, for use on GMU's internet, $800. More info is available at their website: www.adst.org
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Name
Submitted November 26, 2001, 4:55 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 19 at the time and attending summer school at college. I was at my parent's house that Sunday and watched the landing there. I remember the tenseness during the final minutes of the landing. I can still remember hearing the call of "1201 alarm" and "1202 alarm" and thinking to myself that they were going to abort the landing.
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Name
Submitted November 25, 2001, 4:09 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a little boy aged 13 and the landing was at 21.00 uk time. Filled with adrenalin I could not sleep and my parents took the TV upstairs to their bedroom. We did not know how long it would be before Armstrong stepped onto the moon, they were supposed to have a sleep as well I think but could not. It was around 03.00 in the morning when it happened and I had never stayed up so late before. I vividly remember the first TV pictures being upside down and appearing when Armstrong pulled on some lever to open a hatch. He described the moon surface when he was at the bottom of the ladder I did not hear the famous words spoken and did not realise he was on the moon. I remember feelings as much as the events and being as much astounded by the reaction of people around the world because everybody seemed to be watching and everybody thought they were so brave so far away and so alone risking everything.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Politics they had to beat the commies and were scared of moon bases and nuclear missiles being launched at them. They apparantly thought the USSR was secretly testing nuclear weapons on the far side of the moon.
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I am a nut when it comes to Apollo. I have followed the story with interest and all the people were so brave and are real heroes. But what if a large part of the money had been spent on developing rocket engines which could work in the earths atmosphere as well as space. By now if all the money had not been spent on chemical rockets we could have planes taking off going in to orbit and landing an hour or so later on the other side of the world. But people had seen so much money spent on space they were reluctant to see more. So who knows if Apollo had not taken all the tax $ what might have happened. The X planes were just the start but were abandoned.
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Name
Submitted November 25, 2001, 12:06 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
It happened in the afternoon. I was at my mother's house in Valparaiso, Indiana. The next day I would fly with my 3 children to Baltimore to join my husband, who was being reassigned to Ft. Meade. The city came to a standstill as everyone was clustered around their TVs. It took a long time(it seemed) to open the hatch and for Neil Armstrong to climb down. It seemed that we had waited a long time to see a person actually on the moon. The landscape was desolate and looked like it was sandy. We definately felt that history was being made when he started walking. There was enough background news, that we weren't expecting aliens, etc. to greet him. It was exciting to think that mankind had finally made it to the moon.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
I can't remeber except it seems to me that the US wanted to do research on the soil, conditions, etc of the moon surface. They were also thinking of using the moon as some sort to building ground for jump off space stations to further space exporations.
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There had been comments for many years(since I was in grade school in 1945) to put someone on the moon. Now it was happening and the feeling of seeing it come to pass and knowing other explorations would follow was a thrilling experience. My mother who was 62 at the time was very nervous and had trouble accepting the fact that there was actually a person on the moon. She felt he didn't belong there and was tempting fate.
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Name
Submitted November 23, 2001, 10:03 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a Lieutenant (Pilot) of Brazilian Air Force when Man firstly landed on the Moon.
I was obviously fascinated by the space race and followed close all milestones achieved either by the Americans or the Soviets.
Naturally, we had few information about what were the Soviets doing and plenty about the American Space Program.
On July 20, 1969 I stayed "glued" to a radio set listening to the Voice of America's coverage of the trip of Apollo 11 to the Moon.
At night, we all directed our attention to our TV set (in Brazil, TV was black&white in 1969) to watch the first transmission from the Moon.
I remember that the fist image coming from the Moon was upside down!
It took some seconds before the TV anchor for the live transmission noticed that and provided for the correction...
Indeed, we all were astonished at seeing those images. We hardly could believe that those two guys were there!
I could not imagine how Armstrong and Aldrin could have slept after the first walk on the Moon.
I hardly did.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Certainly to defeat the Soviets.
The world, at that time was divided in two clear parts: capitalists and communists.
The Good and the Bad… And, as in the movies, the Good should win at any price!
We, that were in the then so-called "Free World" were radiant to notice that "we"' had won the race, thanks to the leaders of the "Free World", the Americans!
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As in America, the influence of the space race in music and lyrics was also quite noticeable in Brazilian music.
The only difference was that here our poets also sung the Soviet feats…
Lunik 9, the first human-made device that actually landed on the Moon (Lunik or Luna 9 soft landed on the Moon's surface at 7.13 degrees North, 60.36 degrees West in the Oceanus Procellarum on Feb 3rd, 1966) was the theme of a famous and loved song by Gilberto Gil (look for some of his musics at http://www.bossanovaguitar.com/gilberto_gil/gilberto_gil.html), that says (on my translation!):
"Poets, folk-singers, lovers, rush!
It is time to write and sing about what are probably the last Moon nights…
(……………………………………………………………..)
7, 6,5,4,3,2,1… and there went the Men to conquer other Worlds, looking for hope, that here was lost
(………...................................................................)"
Believe me, the lyrics of such music is a jewel when in its original in Portuguese, and we still and often listen to and sing it today.
Now, back to JUly 20, 1969: imagine if the USA had continued investing on missions to the Moon and other planets.
Yes, we all know, Americans have their domestic problems too and that lot of money was needed for other programs.
But only imagine…
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Name
Wilson Guimarães Cavalcanti
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Submitted November 23, 2001, 12:39 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My name is Alfredo Martínez
I was born in México City and i was six years old when Neil Armstrong first steps on the moon.
I was with my parent´s home down one table playing like i be an astronaut inside my spacecraft. I can saw the
black and white Philips Televisión and hear mexican media from JSC in Houston Texas with Jacobo Zabludovsky
and Miguel Alemán talk about Armstrong activities.
When Armstrong said "That´s one small step....................." Mr. Zabludovsky said "Stop yor watch" and
remember for all the time this historic moment. The time in México. 20:56 july 20th 1969.
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Name
Arq. Alfredo Martínez Robles
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Submitted November 15, 2001, 2:31 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
> We have vivid memories of July 20, 1969, the day we were married in the
> Unitarian Church of Arlington. Friends and family from Illinois, New
> York, and the DC Metro Area came to celebrate our wedding and later
> gathered to watch the moon landing .
> When we left the reception we splurged by spending our wedding night at
> the splendiferous Madison Hotel in downtown D.C. We enjoyed royal
> treatment in the wedding suite with champagne, hors d'oeuvres, and a
> late night snack of lobster from the Montpelier Room, the hotel's famous
> restaurant.
>
> We didn't see the live landing on the moon, but at 3 AM we saw a replay
> on TV. We will never forget the night Neil Armstrong took our first
> steps on the moon and we started our marriage of 32 plus years.
>
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
>Our feeling is that the U.S. put a man on the moon to compete with
Russia's space program, which put the first man in space.
>
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We had expected to have our wedding day declared a national holiday
and have been disappointed, thus far at least, that such has not been the case.
>
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Name
Submitted November 13, 2001, 4:31 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
My most vivid memory of the landing on the moon of Neil Armstong and Buzz Aldrin July 20, 1969 was to experience the happy cheering of a thousand Iranians whom we had invited to the Binational Center (of the Embassy) in Tehran, Iran to participate in watching the moonwalk. As Acting Public Affairs Affairs fficer (of the Embassy), I was interviewd by Iranian television in my role as the host of this large audience.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Of course, our purpose in putting a man on the moon was to prove that we could do it, and incidentally before the Soviets could do so, not to mention the benefits of scientific study. We tried to share with other nations our triumph as a triumph of all the world, which sharing was reflected in the American and Iranian press. But most Iranians waved off this modesty and gave the U.S. full credit.
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We later shoiwed films of the moonwalk to many Iranian audiences, who were very appreciative.
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Name
Submitted November 12, 2001, 8:06 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
From 1967 to July 1969, I was assigned to the US Consulate, Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia. A remote post consisting of six Foreign Service officers and Staff. We lived in a "fishbowl community" in that we associated closely with other foreigners living in Medan as diplomats, honorary consuls/shipping agents, missionaries, or living outside of town on rubber, coffee or palm oil plantations owned by various companies such as Uniroyal or Goodyear. Our only means of commercial transportation with the outside world was via a scheduled weekly domestic airline flight
from the capitol, Djakarta. The weekly flight was sporadic at best.
Our main source of news was via short wave radio broadcasts from BBC, VOA and Radio Australia. Geographically speaking, we were so near, yet so
far, from the Vietnam war which was at it's height as far as American troop involvement. Most of the news was received after the fact unless it
was a "live broadcast" such as President Lyndon Johnson's announcement that he would not run for reelection. Also, the time difference between
the USA and Indonesia is over twelve hours and you had the International dateline to consider. This background is given to try to provide some
perspective.
Just about everyone was following the voyage of the Apollo 11 as it travelled to the moon. I was sitting in a chair, alone, on the screened
front porch of our house listening to the live VOA broadcast on my Zenith Transoceanic short wave radio as it first landed on the moon. It
was a warm night and as I recall it was around 10 or 11o'clock in the evening local time. I was a ham radio operator operating under reciprocal agreement with the Indonesian government. I had short wave radio antennas on the roof of our house and also in the front yard. Sometimes I would operate my short wave radio from the front porch and the neighbors would drop by to listen as I talked with fellow hams around the world. The day after the moon landing, some of the neighbors dropped by and asked for an update on the moon landing. They thought I had stayed
up that evening to talk to the astronauts as they made their walk on the moon. I had to explain that I was just listening to the moon landing and
moonwalk on VOA.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
It all started with the Soviets launch of Sputnik and subsequent successful orbit of the earth by Soviet Astronauts. The United States got
caught behind in the entry into space and had a few embarrassing successful satellite launches before we were able to duplicate the Soviets successes. President John Kennedy had made it a priority in his famous speech announcing that he intended for the United States to successfully put a man on the moon and return him to earth. It was a national priority, a point of national pride and also had military undertones in that it was also part of the Cold War.
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The mid and late 1960's were a turbulent period for the United States. Embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, tragic assassinations of Rev.
Martin Luther King and Senator Edward Kennedy, domestic unrest witnessed by race riots in a quest for racial equality coupled with property
destruction and anti war demonstrations. As I listened to all that was transpiring back home, the sense of hopelessness and some anxiety on my
part, and perhaps many other Americans serving abroad is hard to put into words. Despite all of the disharmony, the United States was able to
exhibit the best of its qualities as a people and a nation by successfully putting a man on the moon and bringing him safely home while
at the same time struggling through the trauma and disharmony of an unpopular war overseas. I believe that no other nation on earth could
have accomplished all of this under such adversity and survived. Looking back on it all, I believe that we came out of it a stronger nation. The thing that I am personal most proud of is that I faithfully served my country through all the adversity and kept the faith.
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Name
Submitted November 12, 2001, 7:57 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
On July 20, 1969, I was helping a friend bring a boat up the intracoastal waterway; we had stopped at a nondescript local restaurant for dinner. We stared in amazement and relief at the small black-and-white television screen over the bar where Neil Armstrong, in his inflated coverall, was taking man’s first improbable steps on the moon.
What luck that the United States had pulled off this major coup in its ongoing space rivalry with the USSR! And what luck that we had come ashore! It’s not the same to learn about it later from the newspapers; you need to share such “where-were-you- when” experiences as they happen.
Although neither of us was directly involved, my friend was a Federal civil servant and I was employed on a Senator’s staff. Our jobs were strictly within the domestic arena, but virtually no public policy was unaffected by Cold War rhetoric and superpower competition. Both the creation of NASA and passage of the National Defense Education Act were reactions to Russia’s Sputnik, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the globe. True, that had been a few years before my arrival in Washington in 1962, but the legislation extending, amending and funding these Federal programs drew its rhetoric from arguments that primacy in space and in technical and scientific education were critical to national defense, and that we were in imminent danger of falling far behind.
I remember a local customer, seated at the bar, expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the image: What proved that it wasn’t just a guy outfitted in a space suit, a godforsaken spot of desert, and a flag? Although the term “spin” wasn’t used back then, his sentiment reflected an enduring skepticism about self-serving government press releases and managed news…which shocked me and struck me as paranoid, back when I was idealistic and hopeful of making a difference.
Thinking about that national triumph of daring and technology, without any bombing or body counts, makes me nostalgic for who I was then and who we still were before money had totally triumphed over the Democratic process.
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Name
Submitted November 12, 2001, 7:47 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
As a member of LRI, yes, I was definitely of the early Space Age.
I was a mother of four youg children. Since this was an historical moment in US history, my husband and I kept the two older children up to see Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. It's an event one never forgets.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
As to the reason for the space walk, I am not familiar with the scientific background, but I do know that the US and USSR were in a race to place a man on the moon, and the US won.
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Name
Submitted November 9, 2001, 5:46 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
On the day of the moon walk I was Best Man at my best friend's wedding. After the ceremony and dinner the entire bridal party, and a number of others went up to the honeymoon suite and watched the moon walk on television. All of us were filled with pride at this american accomplishment, and it was more important than the bride and groom being alone. By the way, they are still married.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
In my opinion it was primarily for pride, and to show up the Russians, who at that time were competing with us to gain a foothold on superior technololgical advancement in space. There probably were many more scientifically significant space achievments, but none so dramaticas the moon walk.
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Name
Submitted October 2, 2001, 10:13 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
For months before the mission, i had a large
poster of the three astronauts wearing their space-suits with the helmets off, hanging on the wall of my bedroom. It didn't matter to me that
my house was on the wrong side of the tracks, in
a small town, in a remote part of the country...
...somehow, after watching the landing, i felt
that as an american... ...I could accomplish
anything I set my mind to!
They had done it.
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Name
Submitted September 5, 2001, 2:11 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I remember we were out in my grandparents' garden that day, way out in the back where they
had rows of raspberry bushes. My grandparents lived in Snohomish, Washington, and the raspberries
were just right for picking and making jam. We spent the afternoon laughing and talking and picking berries,
and every once in a while one of us would look up at the moon, very pale in the daylight sky above us, and
remark about how strange it would be to look at the moon from now on, knowing human beings had landed
and walked there. We saw the moonwalk itself later as we were making jam - the red-and-white kitchen
such a mess with kettles and bags of sugar and bottles of pectin. My parents, my grandparents, my brother
and sister and I - all of us, we were loud and laughing, and then the quiet settled around us as we
watched Neil Armstrong put his foot down on the surface of the moon. How we sensed right then that the
world was changing. The distance from that kitchen to the moon seemed immense, both in terms of time
(jam-making being an activity left over from a different century, I thought) and distance -from Snohomish,
Washington, all the way to the moon. I know the moon has ever been the same for me, and neither have
raspberries.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
Like the mountain, because it was there, I think. And because Russia was there, too.
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Name
Submitted August 20, 2001, 4:50 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was too small to remember the walk very well but remember enough that it put my sight's towards the stars and they haven't left since.
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Name
Submitted August 11, 2001, 1:07 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was a 5 year old living in a small town (Jamshoro) in Pakistan. Everyone was talking about the man on the moon. I was scared too as a child that if a man lands there what would happen to the moon it would probably explode or there would be some change that i was scared of! we later on watched it on television.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To test their technology.
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Name
Submitted August 10, 2001, 3:57 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was very relieved that the the descent propulsion system and the RCS propulsion systems worked properly. I was one of 5 LM propulsion systems engineers in Mission Control at the time. My specific task was monitoring RCS propellant usage during descent. I was also apprehensive about the ascent propulsion system firing to get them off the moon. We 5 had many discussions about what steps we could suggest if it didn't fire. It was a big relief when it did.
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Name
Submitted July 25, 2001, 1:44 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
Dan: I am a seniornetter one of many who you invited over here. I was in San Francisco visiting 5 old highschool friends. We were all 40 years old at least, and we had the T.V. on waiting for the pictures to be shown. When we saw the man come down the ladder in his space suit and place his foot down on the surface(black and white picture of course and very snowy) we all shouted and yelled like we were at a highschool basket ball game. It was a moment we will always remember and afterwards we said how blessed we were, born in the 1920's to live to see this.It was pure science fiction to us. Everyone laughed at me because I was married to Buck Rogers. Really.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To show the Russians we could. It was a pure propaganda move. It was a very expensive way to prove our superiority.
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Some times when people told me that they didnt believe that we had ever really visited the moon and it was all fake movies, I wished I didn't give it a moments credence. But I did. For a minute or more I would think, Yeah that could be true. Then I would realize it was just people living in denial again as they often do.
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Name
Submitted July 24, 2001, 10:11 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 9 years 3 weeks 2 days of age on July 20, 1969. We were camping at Lake Elmore in northern Vermont. At 10:30 to 10:45 PM, as my brothers and sister were sleeping in the tent, my mother poked her head into the tent and said, “Are you awake, Paul?”. Of course I responded that I was and she said, “Do you want to see the moonwalk?” “Yeahhhhh!!!” and bolted out of the tent like any kid who had an interest in the space program. Some person had a small TV setup in the campground and everyone who was awake gathered around the set. There was dead silence as everyone waited for Neil Armstrong to come out of the LM and step upon the lunar surface. When he finally did and uttered those famous first words from the moon’s surface, everyone cheered and clapped and I had wished, “Boy, I wish I was there with him.”. Perhaps one day.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The United States wanted to put a man on the moon because they wanted to bet the Soviets after the Soviets were the first to launch a satellite into orbit, they were first to photograph the farside of the moon, they were first in puttinga man into orbit, they were the first in conduct a spacewalk, they were the first to softland a probe onto the moon, etc. It seems like they were the first in everything when it came to space. Unfortunately, since that was the main goal, after they accomplished the goal, the political-will vanished to continue the program, even though after Apollo 11 came back and the Nixon administration setup a commission to study the future of space exploration that recommended a comprehensive manned program of lunar exploration followed by a comprehensive Mars exploration program and other areas of manned spaceflight activities, after Apollo 17, nothing.
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The other memorable observations that I recalled vividly is the Apollo 13 flight. On the day they were to return to Earth, I was in Grade 3 and the whole school was gathered in the gym where several large television screens were setup. As everyone waited for the parachutes to appear and as the minutes ticked by, the silence was so absolute, you could have heard a pin drop 100 yards away. As soon as the parachutes were visible, a huge cheer erupted simultaneously because everyone knew that the astronauts had made it back safely. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I cried and was walking around holding my face in my hands. And I wasn’t the only one. I saw other students as well as teachers crying.
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Name
Submitted July 24, 2001, 9:09 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was watching it on TV that night. Figured it would be the most
important event I'd ever see.
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Name
Submitted July 24, 2001, 6:17 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I lived on Merritt Island, Florida, from 1966-73, and my father worked at the Kennedy Space Center (on the AF Titan III program), so my memories are of both the Apollo 11 launch and the landing/moonwalk. I had just graduated from Merritt Island High School the month before and was working my first real summer job as a busboy at the Cape Kennedy Hilton--the northern-most hotel on Cocoa Beach. The hotel was jammed with press and VIPs, and I recall astronauts walking through the lobby and doing quick, on-camera interviews. The morning of the launch, a number of us went up to the roof of the hotel's convention center, about five stories above the ground. I'd already seen all the other Saturn 5 launches from home, but this view was closer to the pad as well as higher, so the launch was all the more impressive.
On landing day, I recall getting off work at about 3 PM and breaking the Bennett Causeway speed limit driving home to Merritt Island to be in front of the TV for as much of the landing coverage as possible. I believe we watched Cronkite's coverage on CBS, at least for the actual EVA. The ghostly black and white TV images were fascinating, and I remained glued to the TV for the entire walk, but while I was certainly aware of the historic significance of what I was watching, it was not something that changed my life.
What is increasingly meaningful to me as the years pass is that I had the extraordinary good fortune to see so much history in all those manned launches. It was really a wonderful time to be there.
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Submitted July 24, 2001, 2:01 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
At about 4:30 AM on July 21, 1969, the slapping sound of a rolled-up newspaper landing on the cement front porch of our home broke the early morning tranquility. It was a hot, muggy, Montgomery summer morning after Neil and Buzz's moon walk. The headline on that newspaper solidly confirmed that the previous nights incredible moonwalk was REAL! We were about to see the first sunrise of humanity's new era of interplanetary expansion. The human species had for the first time demonstrated it's ability to grow beyond it's home planet. I still have that newspaper in addition to various magazine and other newspaper clippings, audio tapes of network TV and radio coverage, and photos that our family took at the Cape during those fantastic years of exploration and discovery. Very few generations of humans are witness to events equally as stupendous as Apollo 11 was. Certainly, nothing near to Apollo 11's significance has occurred since the summer of 1969.
July 20, 1969 was also my sister's birthday, so we made a special birthday cake with rockets, spacemen, and satellites for decoration. The original old Instamatic photos made at that party are pretty blurry, (See http://www.moonshot.cjb.net/ )but they really help recall the excitement of the summer of 1969. Those decorations are currently in storage, and my sister plans to search her house for them so that we can take some new pictures of them. Look for those images here sometime in the future.
In May of 1969, my carefully detailed Apollo Lunar Module Scale model was drafted into service as part of the Lunar Module flight simulator that I constructed and installed in my room. It was contraption built from wire, pulleys, toggle switches, peg board, and other parts salvaged from radio and television sets that had been discarded by our neighbors and a local TV station. Unfortunately, it was too large to fit through my bedroom door and had to be dismantled when we moved on July 4, 1970. My buddies used to call my room "NASA LAB 19". I used to play my space record (usually "Astro-Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000" or one of the records that you see displayed on these pages) through the speakers that I had mounted to the back of the peg board walled simulator. For sure, it was almost as good as being in the lunar module with Neil and Buzz during PDI (Powered Descent Initiation). It sure as heck beat doing homework or hanging out at the local drugstore. (Kids didn't hang out at convenience stores back then.)
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
The catalyst for Apollo was the Cold War competition between the USA and the USSR. In my humble opinion, the underlying motivation for planetary exploration is human survival. A single planet species is doomed to an early extinction when an inevitable planetary catastrophe such as an asteroid collision occurs. The irresistible desire to explore and develop new resources is probably wired into our brains at conception.
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Some people believe in sending "cheaper" robotic probes to the planets as opposed to landing human explorers on these "new" worlds. Robert Jastrow the founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies made an interesting observation a few months after Apollo 11 landed humans on the moon in July 1969. Jastrow pointed out that human space exploration was more efficient and "cheaper" than robotic exploration. This highly respected scientist recalled several incidents where "unmanned missions failed due to the lack of human presence, and manned missions were successful" only because humans were on board the spacecraft to observe and react appropriately at critical moments. The most recent example in Jastrow's day was Apollo 11. If not for Neil Armstrong's keen observations and piloting skills, Apollo 11 would have crashed and never been heard from again. Despite the fact that today's spacecraft computers are much faster and possess greater capacity than the Apollo-era systems, they still are no match for a human pilot or scientist.
I still don't think humans will land on Mars within the next 50 years, however, no matter how much "spin" NASA can put on its campaign for a Mars program. The moon, not Mars is the most logical test bed for prototyping and developing the technology of human interplanetary settlement. The moon's proximity to earth makes it a much cheaper, safer and accessible place for our first real steps into the "new ocean of space". The moon is only three days away, whereas Mars is many months of travel time from Earth. Besides, we still have some unfinished business on the moon. Tranquility Base, where humans made a "giant leap" needs to become Tranquility City before we make that "quantum leap" to Mars.
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to work on some of the computers used
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Name
Submitted July 23, 2001, 5:08 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was seven years old at the time, and already an avid space-exploration fan. I had been looking forward to the Apollo XI mission for months beforehand. My most vivid memory is of the incredible tension during the descent to the Moon's surface, punctuated at last by "Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed". I jumped up and started whooping and hollering (remember, I was seven at the time).
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
At the time, it seemed like the next natural step in the great history of exploration, an inevitable successor to the journeys of Columbus and Magellan. In retrospect, of course, it was a particularly adept Cold War prestige maneuver, too. One must remember that Columbus was in it for personal gain, and Spain backed him to improve trade with the Indies. Romance always tends to sag under close inspection.
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One of my greatest disappointments is that America and the world lost the momentum of the Apollo program, and abandoned manned exploration of the solar system. In the past 25 years, no human has been farther from Earth than Los Angeles is from San Diego, and that is rather sad. I hope that exploration resumes before I die and can't enjoy the show.
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Submitted July 23, 2001, 4:34 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was about 9 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Because it was such an important occasion, I was allowed to stay up late to watch. It was all very exciting.
I remember Neil Armstrong switching the LEM to manual during descent, to fly it to a safe touchdown spot, and everyone being so tense that he might not make it. I was very impatient, as the astronauts donned their suits and spent several hours preparing to exit the lander. It was awkward for Armstrong, in his bulky pressure suit, to maneuver off the "porch" and find the ladder rungs, and he kind of bounced from rung to rung, like some spastic ghost on the old television screen.
(beep) "I'm going to step off the ladder now...(beep)...that's one small step for man...one giant leap for mankind." (beep)
Mission Control going crazy with exhilaration. Walter Cronkite wiping away tears. Jules Bergman obviously moved. My parents and myself glued to the television, watching in awe.
I never looked at the Moon the same way again.
And I promised myself I'd work in the space program.
And I did, for fifteen years.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To quote a very famous man, "We choose to go to the Moon and do the other things, not because it is easy, but because it is hard." We went to the Moon for much the same reason people climb Mt. Everest: because, as the old saw goes, it is there. Because, with hard work and effort, we could. Yes, it was aided and abetted by the cold war. Certainly, no one would dispute that. But that only speeded the process, it didn't create the effort.
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Submitted July 23, 2001, 12:39 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 24 when man first walked on the moon. There was a group of us all gathered in a townhouse watching what was happening. It was the middle of the night in the Midwest, but at 24 we were kind of used to staying up! We all knew we were witnessing history. Each thing that happened was really impressive! Just to think that they landed, then waiting and waiting until they opened up and Armstrong came out. Most of all I think I remember the anxious moments when they were ready to take off to come home. Would they make it? Would them be able to land at home safely? Really when I think about all the space travel, it is truly amazing.
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Submitted July 22, 2001, 2:30 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 21 at the time, and two memories sitck out. When Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the lunar surface the first part of his statements was garbelled and I could not understand what he said. I had to wait for Walter Cronkite to repeat it to get the words.
Second, a bit later Buz Aldrin came down the ladder and strarted bouncing about the surface -- looked like a lot of fun. Evidently he thought so too, as Mission Control had trouble getting him to go back in the LEM.
I felt a bit sorry for Ed Collins (the thrid man who remained in orbit) assuming that everybody would remember Armstrong and Aldrin but forget him so I resolved to remember his name as well. I beleive he got to go a second time and did eventually get to walk on the moon as well.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
WHY: Because it was (and still is) there, and we could flip a gigantic bird at the Soviets who had beaten us to space.
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COMMENTS: It is a shame that we largely abandoned manned space exploration soon after landing on the Moon. Had we kept our enthusiasm up we could already have a permanent Lunar base and probably have visited Mars in the '90s.
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Name
Submitted July 22, 2001, 1:16 AM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was twelve years old the year men first landed on the Moon. 1969 seemed to me to be a time in which all things were possible. Thirty two years later, I cannot look back on that time without more than a little sadness of the lost promise of Apollo.
Increadably, on the greatest week in the history of mankind, my parents scheduled out annual vacation to Florida. The beaches, the surf, and the sun were wasted on me. My focus of attention was the tiny black and white TV in our motel room. The ghostly white images broadcasted live from another world was like legend and heroic myth made objectively real. The first Moon walk in a memory which will haunt my dreams forever.
And what further epics we would have to look forward to, I thought. The Moon would be just the beginning of the greatest age of exploration ever in the history of mankind. By the time I was an adult, I thought, people would already be living and working on Mars, And even that would only be the beginning.
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
To open up the high frontier of space and to demonstrate to all the world the superiority of democracy and capitalism over tyranny and communism.
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I mourn the lost promise of that year. That we turned back from it is a blot on our humanity. That blot can be wiped away in only one way. We must gird up our courage, regain our vision, and send out our explorers once again.
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Name
Submitted July 20, 2001, 2:57 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was 17 working at at a yacht club as a short order cook. A high school buddy and I lived in the rooms the club provided for summer help, along with some Irish and Italian guys. I had always been interested in space even skipping school to build the latest Revell models on space. With this international crowd we all found ourselves watching a TV (provided by Frank the "irish guy") placed on top of a large cook stove. The image I think was inverted at first but even when they fixed it it was hard to get your bearings. Finally as Armstrongs' one dimensional looking leg appeared you could kind of get the idea of what you were looking at.Even Cronkite was sort of silent during this if I remember correctly. With what little I knew I tried to give the best private commentary I could. Eventually an awed enforced silence took over the kitchen. Gino the head chef was looking around to see if our faces could explain something that language couldn't. The MAN ON MOON message flashed up which was kind of a funny juxtaposition between a triumphant ahhh, and winning a pinball game. Memories of the loaping floating walk with lunar dirt flying really looked like you were seeing the supernatural, which in a sense you were. The real shock came when you could finally see the photo's they had taken while on the moon. Our visual intro to the moon was this grainy ghostly moving image and to see the incredible clarity of the photos in comparison produced a sort of jarring mental vertigo. We all walked away from this viewing,even in our cocky youth shaking our heads half joking trying to figure out the enormity of what we had just seen. I found out later that my grandmother had died during the walk. One very intense very cool summer.
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Submitted June 16, 2001, 12:27 PM
Describe your most vivid memories of the moon walk:
I was only 6 years old, but I remember my Dad getting me up out of bed and telling me to watch
men landing on the moon. I remember being frustrated by the picture, as it was hard to see what
was going on, and I wasn't sure what i was looking at. But to this day I am sure glad he did that!
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Why did the United States put a man on the moon?
to assert our political and technological dominance in the world.
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