Arguably the greatest achievement in human history.


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Scale diagram of the distance between the Earth and Moon -


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Speed_of_light_from_Earth_to_Moon.gif

Quick question, seem to remember a record coming out about the Moon Landings in the mid to late Seventies. I think it may have been called Armstrong ? the chorus was " the day the world stoped to watch a man called Armstrong walk on the moon " I think it was by a singer/songwriter called John Stewart but can't find any reference to it on the web. Stewart was played often, along with Harry Chapin and Jim Croce by Noel Edmunds on his R/1 show. Any ideas ?

More pics here -

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/remembering_apollo_11.html




http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/apollo_07_15/a35_11446642.jpg



http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/1999/a0111446548.jpg



http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt283/skyscrapercitypics/sci-tech/moon1.jpg

Just watched a few programmes that brought back happy memories about the Apollo space missions and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

What are other people's thoughts. memories and impressions about the whole undertaking?

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/moon-landing-hoax-1.jpg

:lol::lol::lol:

will someone delete my thread about this subject?

Merged 'em.

And may we reach Mars at least before the next 40 years have passed! :cheers:

I remember doing about the landing on the Moon at primary school when it was the 20th anniversary. :shifty:

Just watched a few programmes that brought back happy memories about the Apollo space missions and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

What are other people's thoughts.

That you must be an old git.

What are other people's thoughts. memories and impressions about the whole undertaking?


It was the greatest achievement in the history of our species. I mean think about it: life developed over 3.5 billion years, beginning as single cells, then we crawled out of the oceans and became amphibians, then eventually reptiles and dinosaurs, then birds and mammals, then finally homo sapiens... then we actually left our planet and went to another world. It's mind blowing when you put the whole thing in perspective.

Just a shame the following decades were so lackluster. If we'd continued with the same level of commitment as we did back then, we could have established bases on Mars by now. Sadly it seems people would rather spend hundreds of billions on wars.

Looking at those pictures, if the Apollo landings were faked (arf), the special effects of the production were decades ahead of their time. You couldn't do that convincingly even with cgi today.

Anyone elese been to Cape Canaveral, and the Kennedy Space Centre? I have great memories of being there in Florida to see a shuttle take off, to visit the sites of the old launches and wander round the tourist section, checking out space suits and eating astronaught ice-cream (which was surpirisngly delicious, freeze dried bits of food that look like polystyrene and literally melt in your mouth).

I heard Armstrong speaking last night, very elequant and historic-sounding speach, especially when it dawns on you that here is the first ever person from our solar system...in fact the universe, to set foot on the surface of the moon, and the first person on our world to step onto another planet. You cannout undervalue the achievement the apollo programme was.

I suppose it was inevitable that the later decades would be very slow in comparisson, as the space race ceased, and the motivation wasn't as stroong as before....people got concerned with costs and budgets, and questioned the need for more trips, and we focussed instead on cyberspace and not outerspace.

Happy (is that the right word?) 40th birthday Apollo 11. :)

I heard Armstrong speaking last night, very elequant and historic-sounding speach, especially when it dawns on you that here is the first ever person from our solar system...in fact the universe, to set foot on the surface of the moon, and the first person on our world to step onto another planet.

I'm not knocking Armstrong achievement one little bit, but don't you think that's slightly unnecessary hyperbole? :lol:

Oh, and the Moon isn't a planet.

Looking at those pictures, if the Apollo landings were faked (arf), the special effects of the production were decades ahead of their time. You couldn't do that convincingly even with cgi today.

and more so you have the videos of the lunar lander leaving the apollo module and going to the moon, and then coming back from it. there's no way you could have faked that stuff then.

More pics here -
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/1999/a0111446548.jpg


What a beautiful picture

I was saddened a little when I saw 2001 on its cinematic revival eight years ago. Even its superb special effects had dated harshly and were exposed on the big screen. And that was a 1969 production as well!

here's the full sequence of the earth rise...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6547.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6548.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6549.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6550.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6551.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6552.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6553.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6559.jpg

it's madness, just madness that they went to the moon in a foil tent less technologically advanced than an atari. lunatics/legends.

amazing pictures, even today.

this is my fave moon pic by the way but this is apollo 15 -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/40_A15Sta8.jpg

Even YouTube is in the spirit. :D

http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/logo_lunar-vfl109325.png
Youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/)

It was the greatest achievement in the history of our species. I mean think about it: life developed over 3.5 billion years, beginning as single cells, then we crawled out of the oceans and became amphibians, then eventually reptiles and dinosaurs, then birds and mammals, then finally homo sapiens... then we actually left our planet and went to another world. It's mind blowing when you put the whole thing in perspective.

Just a shame the following decades were so lackluster. If we'd continued with the same level of commitment as we did back then, we could have established bases on Mars by now. Sadly it seems people would rather spend hundreds of billions on wars.

Not disputing those points at all, but you made me think of the other example of mankind / technology regressing since the late 60s: Concorde.

The 747 was far more revolutionary than Concorde.

The Moon mission was a very low tech affair, but it doesn't need a lot of technology to travel through a vacuum, just a big engine to get away from earth.

Could they build the bigger spaceships needed for longer journeys, on the moon and launch them from there?

Not disputing those points at all, but you made me think of the other example of mankind / technology regressing since the late 60s: Concorde.

yeah, and lets face it, not the americans nor the russians could get anything close to it working properly :) the only reason concorde wasn't a huge success was we beat the americans to it so they shut out their aviation market from it. causing the cancellation of almost 90 planes and it went from being a profitable enterprise to being a loss maker. this in turn caused concorde B to be cancelled which was quieter, more efficient, and had a greater range, and as a result we have no concorde today. the american's wouldn't even let concorde fly at mach 2.02 over florida to mexico, even though you're not going to have a sonic boom travelling at that speed. it had to slow down over american airspace, then speed up again out of it!

here's the full sequence of the earth rise...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6547.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6548.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6549.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6550.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6551.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6552.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6553.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-44-6559.jpg

Apollo 8 was the first flight to provide a real Earth-Rise, when it emerged from behind the moon for the first ever time. I wastched a programme about the Apollo programme the other night and the astronauts from Apollo 8 dispute who actually took the first ever photo of it!


:lol: Charlie. I'm 47 (and a half) so was old enough to get into all the excitement and awe of much of the programme. Looking back on most things is not quite the same as when you experienced it, but the Moon missions do. It was easy to pick up the enormity of the programme just from the TV coverage, so imagine the thrill of actually being ivolved in it?




Thanks for sorting the threads WJ!

The 747 was far more revolutionary than Concorde.


I agree and disagree with this. the 747 has had the greater lasting impact on passenger travel but I'm not sure it was the quantum leap in technology that Concorde was. A 747 had the same type of engines, obeyed the same basic set of aerodynamic laws as all previous aircraft, it was just a good bit bigger. Concorde on the other hand, overcame so many technological barriers - the wing design, the materials used to cope with the stresses of supersonic travel, the power of the engines, the avionics to keep it flying, the immense speed - there are still few fighter planes that fly as fast. I love it, if I could buy Concorde a beer, I would.

The technological leaps that the Apollo space mission commanded and/or inspired where enormous. From computerisation (reducing size etc) to the material for non-stick pans. The Saturn V rockets and the lunar modules etc where also pretty impressive things as well!

Is Concorde such a leap in technology? is it flown by wire? or is it just a big jet fighter that uses ridiculous amounts of fuel.

I'm biased because it used to wake me up at about 6 in the morning as it flew over Peckham in years past.

It was extremely loud, you knew about it when that thing flew over you.

Concorde was the first plane to use fly-by-wire technology.

anyone else watch the press conference given by some of the crews of the apollo missions? very inspiring stuff, and each still speaks with such a passion for space and its exploration.

Check out the NASA website today -

http://www.nasa.gov/

:)

concorde had the most efficient jet engines in the world. the plane expanded and contracted by 1ft during flight because of heating. it had one of the first anti skid braking systems on its undercarriage, the sort that all cars have today, it had fly by wire, was the first aircraft with a proper computer on it... basically the technology that rolled off concorde and was used elsewhere more than paid for the project.

The most incredible thing about the moon landings for me is the fact it happened just sixty years after the first powered flight. Sixty years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon we couldn't even make a heavier than air object fly under its own power. I can imagine back then they had fantastical thoughts about what achievements will have been made after another sixty years. Yet, here we are two thirds of the way there having sent man no further, with an aging space fleet and maybe another twenty years before we put a man on mars. It's not technology that has held us back, rather politics, really. It does look like we're on the verge of another space race with countries like india and china having lofty ambitions, and perhaps the United States might want to re-assert its technological prowess. But ideally the best thing that could happen is a real international effort, a pooling of resources... especially if going forward the exploration of space really is in the name of 'all mankind'.

concorde had the most efficient jet engines in the world. the plane expanded and contracted by 1ft during flight because of heating. it had one of the first anti skid braking systems on its undercarriage, the sort that all cars have today, it had fly by wire, was the first aircraft with a proper computer on it... basically the technology that rolled off concorde and was used elsewhere more than paid for the project.

A good reason why fundamental research and development is important to fund. For example, without particle physics, there would be no internet!

the really stupid thing was they didn't fund concorde B because concorde A didn't sell. concorde A didn't sell ultimately because the americans through their toys out of their pram and claimed it was too noisy - other jets as noisy were ok though. anyway concorde B would have made it quieter and made it possible to do los angeles to tokyo for example. instead it was just cancelled...

It was noisy believe me.

Didn't know it had fly by wire. I suppose it was a testbed for the Airbus's systems.

The Indians weren't too pleased about Concorde flying over their airspace either, it wasn't just the USA.

It was noisy believe me.

Didn't know it had fly by wire. I suppose it was a testbed for the Airbus's systems.

The Indians weren't too pleased about Concorde flying over their airspace either, it wasn't just the USA.

Yes, it was noisy, but I believe that it was less noisy than quite a lot of other aircraft flying at that time. I think it actually led to the introduction of noise surveys as people became more conscious of aircraft noise (probably due to the media attention it received). It is the reason for the lower noise emitted from today's modern passenger aircraft.

Never-before-seen photo shows Neil Armstrong's face as he first walks across the moon

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1200725/Never-seen-photo-shows-Neil-Armstrongs-face-walks-moon.html#

I'm not knocking Armstrong achievement one little bit, but don't you think that's slightly unnecessary hyperbole? :lol:
Yer it did seem a bit redundant when I wrote it, but....it is true nevertheless! :tongue3:

Oh, and the Moon isn't a planet.
You know what I mean you pedantic person you! A natural 'Satellite' then.

Edit: Btw, has anone seen, or is anyone planning to see, the new British movie 'Moon', it's been getting a lot of good reviews, thought I might check it out in a week or two whenever I get the time.

The 747 was far more revolutionary than Concorde.

The Moon mission was a very low tech affair, but it doesn't need a lot of technology to travel through a vacuum, just a big engine to get away from earth.



woah woah, i wouldn't go quite that far - they did have to literally invent quite a few things (like hydrogen fuel cells, rocket staging, digital signal processing, development of CAT scanners etc..) to do it.

woah woah, i wouldn't go quite that far - they did have to literally invent quite a few things (like hydrogen fuel cells, rocket staging, digital signal processing, development of CAT scanners etc..) to do it.

that's fair enough

even tin foil and LED lights or the image stabilisation in camera lenses! a huge amount of things we take for granted today we have this programme to thank for. other examples would be water purification, solar energy...

German engineering can get you anywhere you want! :) ;)

hitler to moscow?

Perhaps I should ask this in the questions you have always wanted to ask thread but what is the difference between a Planet and a Moon?

hitler to moscow?

Well... the engineering wasn't what failed there, more the leadership and lots of other things.

What i of course meant was that without Wernher von Braun it might have taken a while longer to get an American on the Moon.

Perhaps I should ask this in the questions you have always wanted to ask thread but what is the difference between a Planet and a Moon?

I thought I could answer that, then they went and relegated Pluto to a sub-planet!

A planet orbits around a star and a moon orbits around a planet, whcih is orbiting the star!

the history channel's got loads of interesting programmes on over here today to do with all this stuff (currrently a documentary on apollo 13, later the original live news coverage of the moon landings, etc). i'd imagine it'd be the same in the uk.

just a heads up. compulsive viewing. :cheers:

This is really cool......

http://wechoosethemoon.org/#

Follow the mission in real time, all the crew communications as they happened 40yrs ago today exactly...

Its the WHOLE mission recordings from NASA.....

I thought I could answer that, then they went and relegated Pluto to a sub-planet!

A planet orbits around a star and a moon orbits around a planet, whcih is orbiting the star!

Yes, this is correct. The IAU (International Astronomical Union) came up with a definition of a planet a couple of years ago (yes, it really took them that long!): it must have become gravitationally dominant in the zone of its orbit around the star. In other words, apart from moons, there can be no other satellites under the influence of its gravitational force within its orbit. This is my understanding of the definition.

It means that Pluto isn't a planet anymore as it shares its orbit with similar sized bodies in the Kupier Belt. The Kupier Belt is a region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune composed of small bodies of frozen methane and water.

There was a big argument about Pluto's reclassification. Some people say that it is because it is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. Others say that it is bad form to reclassify it while the guy who first found it is still alive. I don't know the reason.

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:xfilesmusic:

The Lunar Module has just gone behind the Moon and is out of radio contact. Gripping stuff.

It's a great moment in history. I must say I really like the coverage this year, there is a nice website http://www.wechoosethemoon.org/ and I have yet to check the new Google Moon. I am usually not into this space stuff but this is different.

Btw I crap on all conspiracy theorists. Not even Soviets ran them and now some smartasses are showing up, knowing everything. It's such a shame, but I bet they wouldn't tell any of their bs to Buzz in the face as they would get a nice punch.

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He btw made a song with Snoop Dogg, don't know if it was posted
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Moon in Google Earth -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHJ77RsnFXI&feature=fvhl

Just reacquired the Command Module and waiting for the Lunar Module to come out of shadow. I should have started cooking my dinner a while ago but I'm hooked on the "live" commentary.

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Excellent :D

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(HD version is a must)
Wow what a view! It's amazing to think that there are billions of humans running around dealing with the their own little dramas on that little globe all the while surrounded by that vast vacuum of space.

where is the live commentary?

that's not a strict earth rise... you're also flying above the moon at the same time.

The Eagle has landed! Watched it from Stage 9 to Stage 11.

How I would have loved to have seen this actually live. wow

The first higher quality images of landing sites are there, though these were rushed for the anniversary, they are supposed to make better ones in upcoming months

Lunar orbiter photographs Apollo landing sites
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10289551-239.html

where is the live commentary?

that's not a strict earth rise... you're also flying above the moon at the same time.

Sure, but it's still amazing to see.


btw the commentary is found:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=40030494&postcount=49

and there i was hoping it would be something better than a horrifically coded flash website using stupid AOL shite :(

I thought I could answer that, then they went and relegated Pluto to a sub-planet!

A planet orbits around a star and a moon orbits around a planet, whcih is orbiting the star!

As far as many are concerned, we are part of a binary planetary system.

Can't say I checked the coding of the website. I wonder how would you make the website?

I think the site is brilliant, very well presented.

Btw, here's Google today -



http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt283/skyscrapercitypics/sci-tech/google_200709.jpg

I think the site is brilliant, very well presented.

Indeed. I can't think of anything I'd add. It's really something that they uploaded the whole voice recording of Apollo 11 mission.

Just a quick marker for the Soviet space mission. They where really mysterious, then the style of rocket, the wonderful, neat thrust, even the perculiar monochrome film they shot in all added to the air of mystery and wonder.

Stupid bastards should not have been so secretive.

did anyone else see the remade version of moonwalk one?

Yeah. My lad noticed that the music was the same sort they used in the Clangers.... which got me thinking......!

I wish something would happen in my lifetime like this.

I never got to witness the moonlandings and I missed out on Concorde.

Ever since those the world has taken a giant leap backwards.

The internet is probably the biggest innovation, but that grew incrementally over the years. So I don't think it counts.

I wish something would happen in my lifetime like this.

I never got to witness the moonlandings and I missed out on Concorde.

Ever since those the world has taken a giant leap backwards.

Well, here's a few developments to look forward to -

2012 - Mars Science Laboratory (first actual video camera on Mars)

2013 - James Webb Telescope (6 times bigger than Hubble)

2015 - New Horizons Probe (the first close up, hi-res images of Pluto and its moons)

2020 - Square Kilometre Array (utterly massive radio telescope in Australia, dozens of times more powerful than Hubble)

2020 - Manned landing on the Moon (NASA aims to return by this year)

2029 - Titan Saturn System Mission (hot air balloon travelling over Titan for 6 months, equipped with hi-res cameras, substantially more powerful than the Cassini mission)

2030-35 - Manned landing on Mars (the most likely timeframe for a NASA mission, though China might attempt it before then)




The internet is probably the biggest innovation, but that grew incrementally over the years. So I don't think it counts.

Ha. There will be tons of stuff to look forward to. My website barely even scratches the surface.

Full-immersion VR will be the most exciting thing (IMO). Video games will be literally indistinguishable from reality, it will be like the Matrix.

^You missed my favourite, Rosetta, due to land on a comet in 2014, it's been travelling since 2004. It's a fantastic mission.

Also I think it's fair to say the MSL is a little more than a video camera!

A couple other very exciting missions:

2011-2015+ - Dawn (First mission to the asteroid belt, will orbit the two largest objects in the belt, the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.)

2020~ - Europa Jupiter System Mission (Will include a Europa Orbiter and a Ganymede Orbiter and possibly also a lander or even drill to explore Europa's icy ocean.)

this is my fave moon pic by the way but this is apollo 15 -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/40_A15Sta8.jpg
wow thats an amazing shot!


http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/HotTopics/uploads/144685main_aldrin_moon.jpg

I love these photos from the moon because they are so timeless in a way. When you look at the astronauts back on Earth, you can tell it is 1969/70s because of the clothes, the cars, etc. But when you look at the moon pictures, it is still so technological and "futuristic", that the photos could be from 1969, 2009, or 50 or 100 years from now. And that's unlike all the sci-fi movies that have become dated looking in some way regardless of how well they were made.... it is the photos of real events that still look the most like the future.

got to be america's finest achievement, surely? unbelievable effort, even today. and they even had the audacity to hit golf balls up there - brilliant. that is taking the piss - have that soviet union.