Apollo 11 Comms

One of the talking heads on the news said, “Everyone remembers where they were on this day 50 years ago.” Well, I don’t. I was 21 years old and my ship had just returned from a 6 month deployment to the Med in late May so, we were probably just starting a shipyard overhaul , which was rough duty in that they had started tearing out a lot of stuff and the ship was not a very pleasant place to be. I must have watched it on a TV somewhere but I can’t remember where.
Tom WA4ILH

 

It was different, yet not so different. There were no cell phones and computers, and an 8-track tape player was high tech. But, unfortunately, the divisions in the country were much the same.

Anyhow, 30% is still a lot of people.

 

I gotta hand it to you, an incredible talent for putting a negative spin on anything. What's your take on eating raw oysters?

 

Negative spin? Just telling it the way it was. Credit where credit is due.

It was a brilliant move on the part of the Allies to try to "acquire" as much advanced German technology as possible - both the weapons and the people who made them. Imagine if the Rooskies had got hold of Von Braun....

Some folks remembered what he did before, too....

 

History is history, a tautology of profound implication. They had theirs, we had ours. Theirs did not thrive, given the nonsensical and dictatorial nature of their culture. Here, they did. Von Braun in the hands of the Russians would likely have achieved very little. Indeed, the Russians achieved very little anyway. Yes, the first satellite, the first person in space. Why? Because they had no ability at building compact nuclear munitions. Theirs were massive, requiring massive rockets to transport to a target. Ours were much more elegant, requiring only minimal lifting devices at the time. So, in a sense, when it came time to put men into space, we were at a disadvantage. One that quickly disappeared when the sociopolitical climate demanded it. The poor Rooskis never had a chance, did they?

Von Braun lived in a time and a place (NAZI Germany) where the simple notion of survival required dealing with and accommodating the dictates of a very few certifiably insane madmen. One can ponder how that came to be, but one cannot question how some chose survival over annihilation. It is a biologically ingrained instinct in every living thing.

History is rife with similar examples.

 

Watch and listen!

 

Welcome Back

 

Buzz Aldrin mother, Marion Moon. The ultimate foreshadow?

 

I thought you were making that up -- but that was actually her name. Wow, talk about coincidence.

Very sad story, tho.

 

I think Buzz Aldrin deserved more of the limelight than he got. I was also very glad to see Armstrong trying to shun it as much as he could. NASA channel has a 1 hour documentary called "The Armstrong Tapes" and I watched it last night...Neil Armstrong was a very very brave, and private man. Chuck Yeager had nothing on Armstrong.