32.6 years ago

[radarredux]

From Jerry Pournelle's blog:<br />http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view383.html<br /><ul type="square"><li>According to the Census Bureau, the median age of Americans is now 36.2 years<li>36.2 years ago was July 1969<li>So the majority of Americans were born after Apollo 11<br /></li></li></li></ul><br />My question: When the next person walks on the Moon, will any of the original astonauts still be alive?

 

[kane007]

That makes me 36.4 years old and not American.<br /><br />Can't quite remember Apollo 11 or infact any of the Apollo's but I distinctly remember watching the tv news of the Viking Mars landings.

 

[yevaud]

Hmm. I was a few months short of 11 years old when Apollo 11 occurred. And yes, I understood what it meant. And could not be pried away from my little black-and-white tv without a prybar. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[davf]

I was only 3 1/2 but I loved airplanes and spaceships. Victim of an aerospace household. I certainly didn't fully understand the ramifications but I certainly did watch it and marvel at it. I, like how many other kids, wanted to be an astronaut. <br /><br />I remember Apollo 17 very clearly. I watched it then went outside to play with friends who hadn't even known it had taken off. II couldn't believe they hadn't watched it.

 

[drwayne]

Having a father who worked on the instrument unit, who would throw words like hypergolic and unsymetrical dimethyl hydrazine at a toddler, it was pretty inevitiable I would know what was going on pretty well. (God I wish I could talk to him again)<br /><br />I even clearly remember listening to the reading of Genesis.<br /><br />I remember that horrible day of the fire. My father was at the Cape for that one.<br /><br />I remember, many of the Gemini flights, but not all.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<font color="yellow">"Or a geezer poll: same question but about Sputnik 1, Vostok 1... etc:" <br />Hey, I am one of those !! </font><br /><br />Yeah, me too. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[scottb50]

I watched the landing manning a cash register at McDonalds, we had a tv on top of the grill. 90 cents an hour and 30 cent hamburgers. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spayss]

I watched the Moon landing. Mcdonalds? It was another 5 years before I had ever heard of Mcdonalds. 90 cents an hour wasn't all that bad if it included all the fat and sugar and salt you could eat for free.<br /><br /> <br /><br />

 

[scottb50]

It didn't, you got unlimited drinks, but not food. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spayss]

I was resourceful as a teenager. I would have stolen it and given it away free to my buddies coming in the door.

 

[scottb50]

That's too bad, hope you all survived. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>-I remember watching "Kaputnik" blow up and being shattered by it. Ditto the first Thor-Able moon probe that blew up. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I just watched that one last night on the "Liftoff!" DVD from SpacecraftFilms. Had to test out my new DVD player. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> The narrator (can't remember who it was off the top of my head) had this memorable comment about it:<br /><br />"It just goes to show that, statistically speaking, rockets are spectacular no matter what happens." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[trailrider]

"Set up a geezer poll..."<br /><br />Hey! I resemble that! I'm working on my curmudgeon license even as we speak! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <br /><br />How many remember "Uncle" Werner on "Uncle Walt's" Tomorrow Land seqment on the Wonderful World of Disney? How about the Collier's Magazine series by von Braun, with those wonderful paintings by Chestley Bonestell? (Wish I'd saved mine!)<br /><br />Sputnik I (beep beep beep)? I was a teenager then! Grandmother called me up to tell me about it!<br /><br />I remember sitting at the pool at the Holiday Inn in Cocoa Beach, with a bunch of engineers in the summer of 1961, when Gherman Titov flew over. Talk about a bunch of frustrated people... We'd only gotten Al Shepherd up the previous May. (Gus Grissom wasn't launched for a few more days! Saw that from 1/2 mile away!) Ah, the reminiscences of an old man.... )<br /><br />But the point about most people being too young to remember the glory days of space exploration is WELL TAKEN! We MUST encourage youngsters, from 4th grade on up to get interested in space exploration! The launch of two taikonauts has hardly made the headlines! We must create interest anew!<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!<br />

 

[lampblack]

I was 9 years old in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong made his way down the ladder -- and I'm not sure *I* will still be alive when we finally return to the moon.<br /><br />One hopes. One dreams. But who the hell knows?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

Based on my birthday, just 2 weeks after Apollo 13 limped home that my existance may have been a little inspired by that "One small step for man" My parents have kidded me about that all my life. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I don't remember any of the Lunar Apollo or Apollo Skylab missions, but I remember a little of Apollo-Soyuz. I remember touring the Air and Space Museum and walking through the Skylab exibit there throughout late 70's. It seemed like we went there several times a year, my Grandparents lived in the DC area and I grew up 100 miles south of there in Richmond, and I spent lots of time with them. I remember looking at many different models of the Space Shuttle, some air launched from huge ram-jet powered launch planes, some launched vertically, but this was after the final design was already being built, about the time ENTERPRISE was doing it's air-drop(?) tests, which I watched live on TV.<br /><br />I remember Skylab's future was in doubt, but NASA would find a way to boost it back up, after all, Steve Austin was the Six Million Dollar Man, he could do almost anything with the right sound effects. But we gave up on Skylab, sent it into a terminal tumble, and let it burn up over Australia, not to fear, the Shuttle is right around the corner. It was too late for Skylab, but we'd make Stations 10 times better than puny old Skylab.<br /><br />I remembar lots of delays until Apr 1981, and my family took a roadtrip down to Cape Canaveral for STS-1, but because of the scrub, we went to my Grandparents house down in the Keys and watched it on TV with the rest of the world. Finally, I got to see STS-6, first launch of CHALLENGER from the Indian River bridge. What a sight! I also saw STS-51D and we got a car pass to see it from really close, and that is the closest that I've ever been to a Shuttle launch. I hadn't seen another launch in 15 years, even though I remained a huge fan.<br /><br />I moved to Florida in the spring of 2000 and <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[henryhallam]

<font color="yellow"><br />we moved into our new home, near the corner of Grissom PKWY and COLUMBIA BLVD, about 12 miles from LC-39A<br /></font><br /><br />Hey, I remember that corner - nearly lost a leg there on my bike once on the way to the airport! I will have to come and visit you next time I get out to Tico to do some flying. Florida is a lovely place to be.