Adrian Baldwin
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Observations
  • Reviews
  • Blog
  • The Blog Library
  • My 70s Things
  • Contact Me
  • Links

Over The Moon

7/20/2019

1 Comment

 
There aren’t many instances when I’d be quite happy to be five or ten years older, but the 50-year celebrations of the first moon landing have fascinated me so much that I wish I could have experienced the excitement first hand back in July 1969.

Maybe it’s a “bloke thing”, or maybe it’s a “blokes of a certain age thing”, but watching the media’s excellent efforts (BBC “8 days to the moon and back” “Neil Armstrong” and “Stargazing”: ITV “The day we went to the moon”) to bring the moon landings back into the public consciousness has genuinely excited me. And though I watched all the programmes on my own (Mrs B. and the kids don’t seem to have quite my level of enthusiasm), I can’t be alone in feeling awestruck.

I have spoken to my parents and my older work colleagues to find out if their excitement at the time matches mine now. My mum’s feedback is that the coverage now is so much better than it was then and she has actually found the moon landings more interesting now than she did at the time.  I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expecting that.

I have found myself overwhelmed by the bravery and calmness of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. They really didn’t know if they’d get to the moon … or back. There were so many things that did, and could have gone wrong, that there was every chance that they had signed their own death warrants. And the technology that they were relying on was solid state and less powerful than a modern-day scientific calculator. Yet the astronauts strapped themselves to the most powerful rocket ever constructed and hoped for the best. Wow.

Listening to the wives/children of the astronauts talking about their husbands/fathers blasting off into the unknown had me reflecting on the bravery and resilience of the families that were left behind. I can’t imagine my mum being able to cope with the stress of my dad taking such risks when my sister and I were still in short trousers.

For Michael Collins, he took all the risks and never even got to set foot on the moon. There was a strong possibility he’d have to have made his back to earth on his own if Armstrong and Aldrin got stranded. Hearing him interviewed in 2019 about his thoughts and state of mind was/is inspiring.
 
When it came to the actual landing, Armstrong had to land the lunar module, something he had never even flown before, on the moon’s surface himself because the computer had targeted a boulder field as a landing zone. On top of that, the computer was overwhelmed and triggering alarm codes and the lunar module only had 17 seconds of fuel left. Again … wow.
   
The media all over the world was all over the launch and mission failure would have been very public indeed. Hearing about the pre-planned back-up media stuff if it all want wrong was a poignant reminder of the very real dangers the Apollo 11 crew faced. Thank everything that’s holy that the crew all made it back intact and the alternative press releases and announcements weren’t necessary.

When the astronauts returned to earth, thanks to all the media coverage, they had become global celebrities and subsequently toured the world promoting the mission and uniting people in wonder. I can’t think of anything in my lifetime that has been so enthusiastically embraced by so many countries and cultures.

As well as celebrating past achievements, the media programmes have also addressed the future of space travel. In addition to NASA’s endeavours, the work of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin will get more folk into space, and the moon is being earmarked as a suitable location for a base with permanent habitation. All that is very cool indeed.
    
And on the subject of cool, I have been to The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics (Moscow) and the National Space Centre in Leicester. When I can finally get to The Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral and see the Saturn five, I swear I’ll be as excited as a child in a toy shop. In fact, I’ll be over the moon.

Blog Home
Blog Library
Home 
Follow @AdrianBaldwin71
1 Comment
MckimmeCue link
4/12/2022 07:41:00 am


What an exquisite article! Your post is very helpful right now. Thank you for sharing this informative one.
If you are looking for coupon codes and deals just visit coupon plus deals dot com

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Adrian Baldwin

    Blogging for more than a decade

    Archives

    December 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    May 2021
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.