re: Apollo 11: July 20, 1969 - Forty-Nine Years Ago, perhaps Mankind's Greatest Journey

More of a fan of voyager spacraft mission than appollo missions.

That said- pretty sweet we put men there before all other nations.

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Perhaps??

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I personally think Apollo 11 was the greatest of all!


Did you know they changed Eagle's callsign immediately after landing, completely unexpectedly?

Tranquility Base

Armstrong named the site at 20:17:58 UTC, approximately 18 seconds after his and Aldrin's successful landing, as he announced:
"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

During training, Armstrong and Aldrin had exclusively used the callsign "Eagle" in simulated ground conversations, both before and after landing. Armstrong and Aldrin decided on using "Tranquility Base" just before the flight, telling only Capsule Communicator Charles Duke before the mission, so Duke would not be taken by surprise.

The name has become a permanent designation for the site. Although the name was designated by the Apollo astronauts, the International Astronomical Union officially recognizes the designation "Tranquility Base". It is listed on lunar maps as Statio Tranquillitatis, conforming to the standard use of Latin names for lunar place names. (Many other astronaut-named features have been officially recognized by the IAU.)

Wikipedia: Tranquility Base

What was more difficult?

1. Using 15th century technology to circumnavigate the globe

2. Using 20th century tech to land on the moon?

I have the special edition of LIFE from I think August '69 that details the history of the space program. There are some great photos in there that are fun to check out from time to time.

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Using 15th century technology to circumnavigate the globe

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While I wouldn't try it myself, in a wooden sailboat in the open ocean, celestial navigation is relatively straightforward in transiting from one latitudinal position to another.

So not to take anything away from the sailors.. but Apollo 11 wins I think.

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And wtf has NASA done since?

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Well... after his time as chief engineer of the 3rd stage of saturn v my grandpa got into permanently manned space station work, after the skylab debacle. Spacelab went up for years aboard the shuttle for scientific research, now we have the iss.

Here's a formerly classified nasa photo from December of 1978... the first spacelab pallet being built. They still use this design on the iss to dock and unload cargo. Grandpa is on the stool/ladder.


As far as manned space travel, best i can tell a robot/probe can return me a lot more data, safely, than a whole crew of people. I'm not sure what there is to currently gain by sending people further and further away, aside from bragging rights.

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And wtf has NASA done since?

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Tons. Have you missed all of the rovers on Mars, Cassini, Juno, Hubble, ISS, etc?

Hard for me to believe that the 1st man to walk on the moon...when taking the first initial of his last (or middle) name and spelling his first name backwards spell "Alien."

It's also hard for me to belive that the 2nd man to walk on the moon...has a mother who's maiden name was "Moon."

Finally...Hard for me to believe we communicated from the moon when I can't get cell phone signal near Memorial Stadium.

Perhaps man's greatest accomplishmentioned is convincing so many we went to the moon...and returned safely in a vessel that would fall apart if I strapped it in the back of my truck and drove to Houston.