The week celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission that successfully landed an earth man on the moon - and returned him safely!

I graduated high school in 1969, earlier that year. I remember staying up all night during the earlier mission to circle the moon, glued to a little 9-inch black & white TV, tense with anticipation, waiting for communications to be re-established as the capsule exited the dark side of the moon.

With her parents, a girlfriend and I watched the landing. Despite my restless and sometimes irrational teen years, the space program had me captivated. For years, I remember telling people that rather than donate a dollar (or three, as it came to be) to the presidential campaign on my taxes, I'd welcome that offer if it were applied to the space program!

Many of you are too young to remember this moment. For many, myself included, this was man's crowning achievement.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p...ssions/apollo11.html

Oh, if you happen to be in the D.C. area, you might make an exception to the "not visiting that cesspool" choice this week, as there will be a celebration of the Apollo mission and moon landing on the Mall:

https://washington.org/event/a...stival-national-mall

I was absolutely enthralled with the early space program, especially after Sputnik was launched. I remember watching all of the Redstone, Vanguard and Atlas launches. Watching the Apollo 11 mission was nerve racking. Watched the landing and first step with my parents on my TV because theirs crapped out that morning. It was the most exciting thing I'd ever watched on a TV and still is I think.

Jim

I remember being at home and watching the launch

my parents recognized at 10 years old I was a geek and they allowed me to skip school if they thought I would learn something important

my desire at aged 10 to become an astronaut is why I'm an engineer, pilot and mathematician today

No human endeavor before or since has been as important as this reaching out of our home to another world, albeit one that has never been repeated by another other so-called 'super-power' since.

'For all Mankind'.

Best words ever spoken.

Way before my time, but I’m absolutely obsessed with everything NASA/Moon. It absolutely blows my mind that this actually happened.

The balls that EVERYONE involved had were bigger than the moon.

A friend of mine who worked in the Master Control room at Huston as one of the flight controllers told me that for those missions to succeed over 15000 separate operations on board the rocket and capsules had to go right.

I was married and in the Navy. My youngest child was born nine days after the moon landing.

I used to get up around three in the morning to watch the launches starting in 1961 when I was a teenager. I wanted to be an astronaut and fly in space.

I was the ship's liaison with NASA for two later manned spacecraft recoveries. When I looked inside the capsules after they were on the ship, I decided there was no way I was going up in one of them.

Despite my interest in the program, I grew weary of the long wait between landing & stepping out on the moon. My oldest was but a few months old, & I took a welcome break by going crappie fishing at a local lake.

Returning home with a full limit, I was in time to catch the descent down the ladder onto the lunar surface, as well as change and feed my young son.

I was in my mid teens and remember the space race as it started. I watched it on a small black & white TV on a fuzzy picture while Walter Cronkite narrated on the one channel we were able to receive.
For many it was when the Soviets sent Sputnik and then the first guy, Yuri Gagarin into orbit before we could do it. There was a race for a while and it seemed like was for who would be able to determine the future of mankind.
Clearly there would be military repercussions as atomic testing, the Vietnam war and other happenings made it clear.
Luckily we were soon to pull ahead of them, never to look back. We pulled it off without them being able to respond, then did it again and again.
I suspect people under about 45 don't really understand the complete picture of how important this was in the 60's and how difficult. We now carry around more computing power in our pockets on phones than many of those large machines NASA had and much of the work was done with slide rules and on paper by hand.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/...e-apollo-11-landing/

I was 7 when we landed on the moon, and was also enthralled by it, as I was by the space program for years afterwords. (I still am, really.)

My uncle was a NASA scientist - not a rocket scientist, but a researcher into astrophysics. He always sent us packets of press materials for space missions - the official photos and other press materials. We loved it. I wish we still had it, but it is all gone.

It is one mans' great achievements.

I remember watching it in elementary school, albeit about 25 years later.

Always been fascinated with it, Saturn V & the Shuttle.

Started college in Aerospace Engineering, but it wasn't to be.

quote:

It absolutely blows my mind that this actually happened.

The balls that EVERYONE involved had were bigger than the moon.

I feel this way. The odds against it seem insurmountable to me. I was 11 at the time.

In honor of the 50th anniversary, here's video of Buzz Aldrin clocking a nutjob moon denier right in the face.

I remember that.

I would not usually advocate punching anyone in the nose, but once he called Buzz a coward and a liar, he absolutely had it coming. It was a nice compact punch, too.

Good for Aldrin.

I am very fortunate to live just a few miles from the Udvar-Hazy annex of the National Air & Space Museum.

There is a whole wing dedicated to the space program, and includes some Mercury and Gemini items, the shuttle Discovery, and for the first time in 13 years, Neil Armstrong's space suit from the moon landing.

A great place to visit. And if you go after 4:00pm, parking (the only charge) is free.

I was sixteen and on a family vacation in Wisconsin. Several of us teens watched it on the black and white t.v. at another guest's house at the resort. Even took our minds off each other for a couple hours. Momentous.

One of mankind's greatest achievements.

I was fortunate to tour the MOCR-2 (Mission Operations Control Room -2) this past week, from where they controlled Apollo 8-17. The detail and restoration leave it nearly identical as it was when Apollo 11 landed and it was simply AMAZING to see firsthand.

Restoring Apollo Mission Control Center

Saturn rocket for the Appolo missions on the Washington Monument.

not my picture.

I watched the events in Tehran, Iran. USAF had sent me there a few months earlier for duty, and the Iranian government had just finished installation of a satellite TV network--a large part of the Iranian population was able to watch the landing. (Of course, this was while the Shah was still on the throne.)

flashguy