One Small Step…

I keep hearing people say, “Seems like only yesterday” but I can’t agree. Even so, it’s an impressive achievement. 40 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

It seems so trite a phrase “Landed on the moon,” but really think about it. Think of the forces involved. The sheer balls of it. Think of the MATH! In 1969 we put two guys on the freaking moon and brought them back! That was something special and my hats off to everyone that helped out.

If you want a trip down memory lane (or to pretend like you were alive back then, like me), NASA has a great site full of photos and videos.

And, if you’re really jonesing for a trip back, Google Moon can help you out.

11 replies on “One Small Step…”

    • Not sure if it was a new episode but Mythbusters last night took on the conspiracy theorist’s claims and ended up disproving them all. The big one for me was showing how the flag could move around in a vacuum as if a breeze was moving it (momentum + lack of friction). Anyone who still thinks it’s a hoax is an idiot :P

      • I suspect launching a moon-landing hoax that could manufacture all of the existing evidence and remain undetected for forty years would cost more money and require greater ingenuity than actually landing on the moon.

  1. Here’s one for y’all. Go to google moon, then Apollo 11, then site 14. (The View from South-East of the Lunar Module). Align the shadow of the photographer so that the “+” above him is on the right border of the picture. Now zoom in three times, and move a little to the upper right. I see two identical-looking wheel things. Anybody have any idea WTF? They look like stone, but are pretty regular, including some sort of center piece and a radial line.

    I know, I know – moon-trooffer. No, we went to the moon – but I can’t explain that formation. Anybody?

    • I’m not seeing any wheel things. I see rocks that look like saucers because of the angle. I hope that’s not what you’re talking about.

    • Oh lord! It’s the moon-rock people come to destroy us all!

      Kill it! Kill it with fire! No, that won’t work. Pick-axes! That’ll do it. Follow me men!

  2. I love how the news keeps interviewing people about “where you were when the moon landing happened” and they gush about seeing it live.

    Then they ask “should we go to Mars” and everyone’s like “no, that too expensive.”

    It just pisses me off that those old enough saw the moon landing and those of us to young just get to see mankind’s quest for adventure and exploration die so we can hurry up and implement social programs that cost 500x what a trip to Mars would….

  3. From this JerryPournelle.com article: “From the time I was in high school I knew I would live to see the first man land on the Moon. I did not suspect I would live to see the last one.”

    That pretty much sums it up. Granted, I was still about negative eight years old at the original moon landing, but I’m really starting to doubt that I’ll see another.

    • We really believed this was the beginning of something big. Everything was going to be different and we’d head to the stars.

      Billy Bragg summed it up nicely:

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