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Where I was 46 years ago tonight...

3K views 33 replies 28 participants last post by  Rusty J 
#1 ·
It occurred to me earlier today that exactly 46 years ago this evening some friends and I were parked at the top of Cole's Hill in Plymouth Massachusetts overlooking Plymouth Rock, in a 1965 Corvair Monza with a 9" Sony black & white TV on the hood--Watching men land on the moon

This happened because we had had a leader who knew how to set lofty goals and make it clear failure was not an option. We improvised, adapted, and overcame.

Pretty cool...
 
#3 ·
Well that's pretty interesting, because you remember, and it was a Corvair MONZA! :)

Wasn't the moon landing done on a soundstage in Hollywood etc :rolleyes:
 
#5 ·
I was a clueless 2-year-old toddler.
 
#7 ·
We don't have the time or money to do those things now , we are much to busy paying for and fighting needless wars .

TheReaper!
 
#17 ·
Really..... 46 years ago the war on poverty is only 5yrs. old, and by the way, how are we doing on that one? Viet Nam is in full swing, Riots and protest marches all over the country, cities burning, Bill and Hilary are smoking dope but not inhaling while studying Marxism. Meanwhile .... back at the halls of justice, J. Edgar Hoover puts on his super snooper costume, a nice little red number he picked up in the lingerie dept. at Macys.... And we still landed a man on the moon, hard to believe. God I miss the good ole days. :rolleyes:
 
#8 ·
I was 21 and recall it clearly but not sure where I was.
I do try and forget my age then people come along and remind.

Then I get on the Wee and drop 40 years and go have fun. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxPbnFc7iU8
 
#9 ·
I'm sure that I was plopped down
in a big over-stuffed chair, watching
a fuzzy picture on an old black & white TV.
 
#11 ·
I was 13 and took a break for the day from chasing GIRLS. Yes I did enjoy the day but those girls....... still haven't figured them out. :twisted:
 
#13 ·
I was at my aunt's house watching it, went back three years ago for the town's 100th anniversary and stood on the empty lot remembering the moon landing and things we did in the house during holidays. Never forget the 10-9-8-7-6 etc, burned in the brain! (Houston we (I) have a problem...
 
#18 ·
I was just back from Vietnam!

I was just home from the war. I spent my year as an infantryman. When I got home, I was oblivious to everything but my beautiful wife! However, I did have the pleasure of a private meeting with Neil Armstrong at his office at the University of Cincinnati in 1972. He was a very gracious host.
 
#19 ·
I was busy with the war effort at Takhli AFB, Thailand. The video we received was almost decipherable, just 'snow' on the screen. The audio was just a little bit better. But, I DO remember the day well.
 
#20 · (Edited)
In the Army out in the field, no info or video was around. Didn't know anything about it. I didn't see the video until I came back to the states after my discharge. A moment in history I missed. :(
 
#21 ·
A great achievement.

I have a fuzzy memory of it.
The Russians had all the space records up until then so that must have been a big motivator to get first manned landing (first satelite, first animal in space, first recovery from.., first man in space, first moon landing, soft landing, photo, soil sample had all gone to the USSR.
Home to do the big one or bust!

Must have been amazing to work on and an incredible feat with the technology available at the time.
 
#34 ·
We could, but we wouldn't.

At the time, it was pretty much to prove a point, as was most of the Space Race.
Sputnik showed that the USSR could put a complicated object into orbit, and presumably de-orbit it onto any point on Earth at will. In other words, it was a proof-of-concept for ICBMs.

The Apollo program showed that the USA could put a heavy complicated object, with personnel, into orbit, and move out of orbit into another planet(oid)'s gravity well, and back again. Which, if you think about it, is a proof-of-concept for pretty much any sort of orbital bombardment capability one could want (nuclear, or even just turning asteroids into meteorites).

There's really nothing military left to prove with a space program, and there isn't any profit in it. We have satellite launch capability, and that's pretty much all we need from a commercial standpoint.

The International Space Station is there because it's there, and we send people up there and bring them down because it's there. That's about it these days.

That said, I wouldn't put it past Space-X to try it just to prove they can do it -- in hopes of getting paid for a Mars mission. I don't count it as terribly likely, but I don't rule it out, either. It would be pretty darn cool, though.
 
#23 ·
#24 ·
I was a primary school kid in Scotland. I can recall seeing the images on the news, and the sense of excitement in everyone.

The achievements of this period (50's & 60's) are remarkable, and laid the groundwork for where we are now........it's amazing when you think that the average cell-phone now has more computing power than NASA was using then to put a man on the moon.
 
#25 ·
Most of the lunar Rover and many other parts were built at the Boeing plant in Kent Washington and my grand uncle worked on a lot of it.
 
#27 ·
Seems there is a where-were-you-when-it-happened event for every generation. Mine was the Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986. I was a senior in high school in a very rudimentary computer lab. We all stopped to watch it on the television and then it just exploded. Looked at my teacher and asked what happened but she just stood stunned. That was also the day both my grandfathers died.

Of course, for the next generation it was 9-11. Was a teacher then walking to class when everyone was staring at the television showing the twin towers smoking. Thought it was a movie and kept going until I got to class and found no one there. Surreal day it turned out to be.
 
#29 ·
Both of those I distinctly remember.......
...For Challenger, I was in the Falklands, there was no TV their then. Heard about it through Military communications, and we booted up an HF system on one of our airframes to connect with a USAF unit to get, more information. Was days before we saw the video. (though it took only 4 hrs before the first joke got transmitted to us)
...On 9-11, I was installing a machine at the McIllhenny (Tabasco) plant in Louisianna. The maintenance manager came and told me of the first impact, and we watched the coverage from then on in their break room.
As you said, was a surreal day.
 
#28 ·
I was serving in the USMC, 0351, rocket launcher gunner, infantry. I was in the presence of American patriots, no sissies/draft dodgers, etc.
 
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