I consider myself “a child of Apollo”. We didn’t have a TV at the time, and my dad was not about to buy one, so I begged/borrowed/stole scrap TV chassis from various sources and built my own so that we could watch Apollo 8 and then the landing. It’s how I got started in electronics. (and very nearly ended – those chassis were live to the mains and the HT was just mains rectified to DC. I can still hear the explosion caused by one of the smoothing capacitors in my little room under the stairs. If I’d been standing over it, I would not be writing this now).
An abiding memory is James Burke talking over the astronauts. He just last night gave a lovely radio account of the BBC coverage: James Burke: Our Man on the Moon in which he makes reference to the talking over, so he must have a got a basting over it!
Excellent thread, many very good links posted. Thanks all!
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/orbital-missions/
I clearly remember last three missions – I was too young before. I remember Apollo 15 – it was summer 1971, we were at seaside and father was mocking my brother and me to stare to the Moon to see the astronauts; we were so trustful when he was pointing with his finger and pretending to be surprised how we didn’t see anything.
I saw the movie last night.
It was very good. A nice complete documentary of the whole Apollo 11 journey. All original footage and a lot of it was of good quality.
The only thing I didn’t like was the sound track which, as at the time, really needed subtitles. It just wasn’t recorded well.
Well worth seeing.
It’s amazing that there’s lot of people (it looks like a growing number or maybe it seems because of social networks presence) who don’t believe it actually happened. Some of them who I talked to are reasonably intelligent although without scientific background in physics, chemistry or engineering. However, they are brave enough to discuss the topics of rocket fuel, engines, thrust, gravity, navigation etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
Emir wrote:
It’s amazing that there’s lot of people (it looks like a growing number or maybe it seems because of social networks presence) who don’t believe it actually happened. Some of them who I talked to are reasonably intelligent…
Amazing indeed, but it seems that some people are inclined to believe in conspiracies.
In 2002, Swedish public service television aired a fake documentary “proving” that the 1958 Soccer World Championships in Stockholm never happened. It was revealed at the end of the documentary that it was a fake. The intention, of course, was to show how relatively easy it is to make a case for a falsehood which is convincing at first sight and show the importance of being critical to what you see and read.
Yet some people now believe that this patently false claim is actually true – i.e. that the 1958 Championship actually never did happen!
Well, yes, but I don’t think being unintelligent correlates to believing in conspiracy theories. For one thing, what is characteristic of “believers” is the complete rejection of any conflicting evidence. Also, many “believers” are known to be intelligent.
Sure.
I think what had changed since, say, 100 years ago is that everybody, no matter how stupid, has equal access to social media, and makes themselves heard.
