Cycling Related

We are all around the same age, I think. Do you remember what you were doing this time 50 years ago?

I've just been through a roller-coaster. I remembered watching Armstrong take that first step when the whole school jammed into the grade 3 classroom, one winter's day. But then I googled and saw that happened at 6am. I didn't remember being dragged out of bed to watch it. I think I would, because I remember 2 years earlier, my dad waking us up. It was - I think - the first time I had seen in walking about in his pyjamas without a dressing gown, and definitely the first time I saw him crying, to tell us that Grandpa - his dad - had died. (end of diversion).

Anyway, a second googles made me understand that the Lunar module touched down at "July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours 39 minutes later on July 21 at 02:56". So that makes mankind's first steps on the moon at around 4am UK time (timeanddate.com says DST was for the whole year in 1969!), and the touch down after 9pm. Not very child friendly times. The first step was just before 1pm in Melbourne, so that ties with my memory.

Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were huge figures in my life. Armstrong so much so that when I first saw Hello Dolly, I found Louie Armstrong somewhat confusing. Aldrin was a doll; and I always emphasised with Collins accepting getting so close. They rivalled the Tracy family in importance.

So - do you have memories of that day? Or later. Apollo 13 was riveting.

Michael Collins showing how he could turn his spoon the wrong way up and the gloop didn't fall out. Mission control told him off because kids in America were eating breakfast at the time.

I wasn't even a twinkle in an eye.

I was 10 weeks old, it's all a bit of a blur for me I'm afraid.

I was just too young as well, it is however recorded in by little brother's baby book that it was also the day of his first ever hair cut. I don't see the BBC making a big deal out of that.

I do remember bits of the last couple of Apollo missions, my dad got me up/ let me stay up late to watch James Burke commentating on the events, and of course we had the Airfix model of the Saturn V.

I'm almost reluctant to admit this, as it outs me as being rather old, but July 1969 was mid-term in a very turbulent, rewarding, and bizarre period of my life, during which I had no access at all to TV. In any case I and my friends at the time had (and I continue to have) serious doubts about the whole "space-race" thing, both its political aspects (two great white patriarchies waving their dicks at each other; colonialism salivating at other planets ...) and in terms of it being good use of seriously unimaginable amounts of money. So I have no direct real-time memory at all of seeing it happening, although I am sure we must have been aware of it, who could not have been?

Now, I can acknowledge the heroic aspects of it, and the triumph of human bravery and teamwork in the face of the comparatively (to present-day) feeble technology available at the time (James Burke's programme about it on R4 last night was fascinating), but I still feel great ambiguity about space exploration in general being A Good Thing.

^plus NASA using a Nazi to design their rockets. It's all before my time, but I had the pleasure of seeing a Saturn V on a recent trip to the Kennedy Space Center. You'd have to be a dreadful cynic to not be impressed with the scale of their achievements, even if the motives were not all noble.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0006zrf

Shortly after an hour in. Radio 3's regular Sunday morning sounds of the earth goes lunar.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend the BBC series of documentaries "Chasing the Moon" now on iplayer. Very well made, I learned many things that I didn't know, it touches on the politics and how the whole endeavour fitted into the thinking of America at the time. Occasionally it is difficult to watch with the normal racism and sexism of the time on full show, and the close up film of Sue Borman enduring the Apollo 8 launch is just as important to see as it is far too intrusive.

Dunckel wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I was just too young as well, it is however recorded in by little brother's baby book that it was also the day of his first ever hair cut. I don't see the BBC making a big deal out of that.

I do remember bits of the last couple of Apollo missions, my dad got me up/ let me stay up late to watch James Burke commentating on the events, and of course we had the Airfix model of the Saturn V.

I hate you. I only had the 1B not the V

JohnToo wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I hate you. I only had the 1B not the V

Is it too late?

https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/produc ... -saturn-v/

My parents had just popped out my big sister and were still recovering before even considering having a go for me.

I wasn't born then.