Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

We will not go back.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

In my day, never was longer.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Lest We Forget Open Thread: The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Lest We Forget Open Thread: The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

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Today….

Progress?

A bag containing traces of moon dust sold for $1.8 million at an auction on Thursday following a galactic court battle.

The collection bag, used by astronaut Neil Armstrong during the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, was sold at a Sotheby’s auction of items related to space voyages. The buyer declined to be identified. The pre-sale estimate was $2 million to $4 million.

The artifact from the Apollo 11 mission had been misidentified and sold at an online government auction, and NASA had fought to get it back. But in December a federal judge ruled that it legally belonged to a Chicago-area woman who bought it in 2015 for $995…

Also getting out-of-this-world interest at the auction was the Flown Apollo 13 Flight Plan, with handwritten notations by all three crew members. It sold to an online bidder for $275,000, well above its pre-sale estimate high of $40,000.

ETA:

The story of Planetes follows the crew of the DS-12 “Toy Box” of the Space Debris Section, a unit of Technora Corporation. Debris Section’s purpose is to prevent the damage or destruction of satellites, space stations and spacecraft from collision with debris in Earth’s and the Moon’s orbits. They use a number of methods to dispose of the debris (mainly by burning it via atmospheric reentry or through salvage), accomplished through the use of EVA suits…

IMO, a pretty good series, until it collapsed completely in the last couple of episodes.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Holy crap, I did forget! The date’s been nagging at me all day, but I didn’t pursue it. Thank you, AL.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So 48 years ago, my then-husband and I had just moved from NYC to Tampa. We drove, with a VW worth of necessities, and our cat Natasha. The only thing of importance was to arrive in time to get a new TV hooked up so we could watch the launch and coverage of the moon landing. We spent a week or ten days sitting on orange crates, but Ken worked for GT&E Data Services, which gave us an essentially free Sylvania TV, so we made do.

    Of course, Chappaquiddick followed on the heels of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” but my gods, it was a thrilling few days. And Teddy redeemed himself in the ensuing decades.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    Actress Marilu Henner remembers.

    ..Several years ago, during an interview on the late-night NBC program Later, she revealed that she can remember what she did on any given date in the past. The host, Bob Costas chose to ask about July 20, 1969, the night of the first moon landing. Henner was briefly dumbstruck before revealing that she had lost her virginity that night in the shower, to which Costas replied, “At least we know Neil Armstrong wasn’t the culprit.” (See hyperthymesia.)

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I was not quite five years old and in the middle of an epic trip through the western US with my parents. We saw the landing on a tiny TV on the tailgate of someone’s proto-SUV in a National Park (I don’t remember which). At this point, I am not really sure I remember seeing it or I remember being told that we saw it. Memories are weird.

  9. 9.

    jl

    I think picking up your trash is progress. Baby steps for humankind. It seems to be the best we can do.

  10. 10.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    The Apollo missions were truly a technological achievement. I’ve said it before, but it’s sad that the Saturn-Apollo architecture wasn’t continued and improved upon for use for an extended Skylab program and eventual Mars program. Like this book:

    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_(novel)

    It’s always a roll of the dice with these missions though. It’s a very good thing a solar storm didn’t happen while astronauts were on the lunar surface

    nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo_astronauts.html

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Here’s my chance to make the young ‘uns envious:

    I saw Apollo 11 launch from my grandparent’s front yard in Altamonte Springs, FL on July 16th. The entire family flew across the country back home to Oregon, where we watched the moonwalk on TV, along with a half billion other people.

    It was awesome.

  12. 12.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    This has nothing to do with the moon landing, but I know you were all wondering about what it’s like watching the Good, the Bad and the Ugly with a five year old in the room:
    [Battle at the bridge begins. Rose walks into the room and stands right in front of the television.]
    Rose, we can’t see.
    [Rose steps to the side. Soldiers die on screen.]
    Why did they kill those men?
    They were bad guys.
    [Rose steps right up to the television. Slaughter goes on.]
    Why did all those other men die?
    Because they were bad guys. You’re in the way.
    [Rose steps aside.]
    Were they the good guys or the bad guys?
    The gray guys are the bad guys.
    [Rose steps right up to the television.]
    So the other guys are the good guys?
    Yes, the blue guys are the good guys. Rose, go get a chair.
    O.K. I’m going to get a baby chair.
    [Rose walks out of the room and comes back with a small chair; doesn’t sit. Battle has ended; Eastwood and Wallach are tying dynamite to the bridge.]
    Who are those men?
    The good guy and the ugly guy. Sit down, please.
    [Rose sits.]
    Why is the man ugly?
    [Rose stands up again.]
    Sit down. That’s just what he’s called.
    Which one is the ugly man?
    The short one. Sit down, please.
    [Rose sits.]
    What are the good guy and the ugly guy doing?
    They’re putting a bomb on the bridge.
    [Rose stands up.]
    Why are they putting a bomb on the bridge?
    Sit down in the chair, would you? They want to blow it up.
    [Rose sits.]
    Why do they want to blow it up?
    Because they want the soldiers to go somewhere else.
    What are soldiers?
    [Rose stands up.]
    They’re people who fight in wars. Sit down, please.
    [Rose sits down and then stands back up again.]
    Won’t they die if they put a bomb on the bridge?
    No, they’re being careful. Sit down.
    [Rose sits.]
    Does the good guy want to kill the ugly guy with the bomb?
    No, they’re working together.
    So they’re friends?
    No, they’re only working together.
    [Rose stands up again.]
    Why are they working together?
    Rose, we can’t see. Sometimes people who aren’t friends work together.
    [Rose leaves room.]
    [Bridge blows up, soldiers leave, Eastwood and Wallach head off across the river. Erelong, Eastwood finds the dying confederate in the church as Rose walks back into room.]
    What is he doing to that man?
    He’s giving him a cigar Sit down, please.
    [The confederate dies; Rose sits.]
    Is he sleeping?
    Yes, he’s sleeping now.
    [Eli Wallach finds the graveyard and begins looking for Arch Stanton’s grave.]
    Why is the ugly man running around the graveyard?
    He’s looking for the gold.
    [Rose stands up.]
    Where’s the gold?
    It’s buried in one of the graves. Sit down, would you?
    [Rose sits.]
    Which grave?
    Arch Stanton’s grave.
    Heart Standing?
    No, Arch Stanton.
    Hard Standing?
    No, Arch Stanton.
    [Rose stands.]
    Heart Standing?
    Yes, Heart Standing. Sit down, please.
    [Rose sits.]
    [Eli Wallach begins digging; Lee Van Cleef shows up and throws down another shovel.]
    Who’s that other man?
    That’s the bad guy.
    So he’s the grey guy?
    No, he isn’t a grey guy, he’s just a bad guy.
    Then why is he bad?
    Some bad guys weren’t grey guys.
    [Eastwood opens Stanton’s grave to show the gold isn’t there. Rose stands up.]
    There’s a skeleton in that grave!
    Yes, I know. Sit down, please.
    You said there was gold in there! Why is there a skeleton there?
    The good guy was fooling the others. Sit down, would you?
    Why was he fooling them?
    It was like a joke. Sit down.
    [Rose sits.]
    Where is the gold?
    It’s in another grave.
    Which grave?
    We’ll find out. Watch the movie.
    [Mexican standoff begins. Rose stands.]
    Is the good guy going to kill the bad guy or is he going to kill the ugly guy?
    Sit down. He’s going to kill the bad guy.
    [Rose sits.]
    Who’s going to kill the ugly guy?
    Nobody’s going to kill the ugly guy.
    [Repeat next two lines 15 times]
    What are they doing?
    They’re getting ready to fight. Watch the movie.
    [End repeated lines; Clint Eastwood shoots Lee Van Cleef, who falls into open grave.]
    [Rose stands up.]
    Is that the bad guy’s grave?
    No, it’s just a grave he fell into. Sit down.
    Why did he fall into it?
    It was just there. Would you sit down, please?
    [Rose sits; Eastwood and Wallach dig up the gold, Eastwood makes Wallach put rope around his neck and stand on cross.]
    See, the good guy wants to kill the ugly guy.
    No, just watch.
    [Rose stands.]
    What’s he going to do?
    [Eastwood rides away.]
    Just watch. Sit down.
    [Eastwood stops and aims gun at Wallach’s rope.]
    Is he going to shoot the ugly guy?
    No, just watch. Sit down, please.
    See, he’s going to kill the ugly guy.
    No, just watch. Please, we can’t see!
    [Eastwood shoots rope; Wallach falls to ground next to his share of gold. Eastwood rides off, Wallach runs a few steps swearing at him.]
    Where are the going now?
    They’re going home.
    Oh.
    Epilogue:
    Daddy, we need to go to a graveyard and get a shovel and dig up some graves so we can get get some gold and then we’ll be rich!
    That wouldn’t be a good idea.
    Why not?
    Because that’s against the law.
    Oh. O.K.

  13. 13.

    frosty

    I saw the landing on a fuzzy black-and-white TV with a few dozen other kids my age. At around 2AM in Madrid in the midst of a travel-study trip. To this day I can’t say if I actually saw anything; the picture was that bad.

  15. 15.

    randy khan

    I was 9. (Now you know how old I am.) During the day, I went to Yankee Stadium with a bunch of neighbor kids for bat day. I got the Joe Pepitone model, IIRC. The lunar module actually landed on the moon while we were at the game. The Yankees put “The Eagle has landed” on the scoreboard – they must have set it up ahead of time because in those days you were programming light bulbs, not LEDs – and everybody stood and cheered.

    That night, our parents woke us up to see the moonwalk. I mostly remember it being black and white and fuzzy, and thinking that the astronauts were bouncing around a lot, but I definitely remember. It probably was the high point of my life until high school graduation (or maybe my first kiss, which came a bit before that).

    Somewhere I still have all the clippings I kept from the Apollo missions. They’re probably crumbling away in the folder with the balloon on the cover.

  22. 22.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @BBA:
    “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.

    It was a proud moment for all humankind, not just the United States. Not even going to go there with the “whitey” comment

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @randy khan: A week and a half before the launch, my family visited the space center. Visitors couldn’t get within a mile of the launch site, so you had to be satisfied with looking at it from a distance, but still, way cool. Just three years older than you, and gosh, it was just cool beans the way nothing else is.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    Off Topic, but we have a 2nd Trump lawyer down!

  35. 35.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    The evil alien spacecrafts can be swastika shaped and the aliens can wear snazzy uniforms. If we’re going full on stereotypes, we might as well go all the way

  36. 36.

    hueyplong

    A perhaps more analogous anniversary today is that of the bomb plot against Hitler in 1944. IIRC, von Stauffenberg (sp?)
    set it off on July 20.

  37. 37.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @BBA:
    Well, now I feel a little silly. I can see the point of that poem. Sorry bout that!

  46. 46.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Didn’t know if that was from something. I am sadly a filthy know-nothing millennial/gen zer and have not seen any Mel Brooks works

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Big part of the job at one of the facilities on top of the Haleakala volcano on Maui is tracking orbiting debris.

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: It is from Mel Brooks’s A History of the World Part I. It is part of the coming attractions at the end of the movie for what was supposed to be in part 2.

    Now git yourself to the streaming services and watch:
    Blazing Saddles
    Young Frankenstein
    A History of the World Part I
    The Producers
    To Be or Not to Be
    High Anxiety

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Personally, prefer the original To Be or Not To Be (Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, directed by Ernst Lubitsch) to Brooks’ practically line by line, scene by scene remake.

  55. 55.

    Emerald

    I was 18. At 18, I was sadly susceptible to peer pressure. My peers decided it would just be a nifty thing to go see the new movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey which was playing at one of the major theaters in Hollywood.

    I wanted to see the moon landing, but I was sadly susceptible to peer pressure, so I went to the movie with my peers. I was sure I’d be able to catch a re-run. Yet in all those years I never did, and I was always too busy to watch any of the other moon landings live.

    Happily however, yesterday, without even realizing that the anniversary was today, I found on YouTube the 3-hour long NASA restoration. I’m about halfway through it.

    So it took me 48 years to resolve, finally, one of the stupidest decisions of my life. Thanks YouTube!

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: It isn’t my favorite. Everything on that list up to and including the Producers is excellent. The others are meh.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    The trouble with TCM’s salute to Ronald Colman this month is that after a while he sounds more like someone doing an imitation of Ronald Colman than like himself.

    Totally out of left field, here’s an amusing magical diversion. Clever act, geared to the digital generation.

  59. 59.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I think I’ve seen High Anxiety. It was ok, but didn’t leave much of an impression and I’ve definitely heard of Blazing Saddles
    I’ll check them out

  60. 60.

    Redshift

    I was glued to the moon mission at age 7, but the only thing I can clearly remember watching was the command module flying through space with the word “SIMULATION” underneath it. I was too young to understand that meant it wasn’t actual footage, and there were no exterior cameras on it.

  61. 61.

    EBT

    I find that when an anime collapses in the last five episodes, that means that it was rushed to market before the Manga was finished. I am looking at you Trigun and Hellsing.

  62. 62.

    ??‍? Martin

    I was only 9 months old, and I understand that I did watch at least part of it, but I have no recollection of it. That said, I only have a single memory from the single-wide that we lived in until I was about 5 and that was sitting in my mom’s lap watching a moon landing on our little B&W TV. It must have been Apollo 17 or a rebroadcast of one of the earlier landings.

    I very closely follow what SpaceX is doing. Their approach is fairly similar to how the apollo program was organized – rapid iteration, and experimenting on the fly. Its worked well for them so far. Hoping that continues.

  63. 63.

    Blehmann

    I remember watching the moon landing with my dad in Jackson Heights. I had just turned five and I had given my father a pair of astronaut themed slippers for Father’s Day. I would like to think that things were more hopeful then but I also remember knowing where the fallout shelter was.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    Most of the people I work with were not born when the moon landing occurred.

    I remember keeping a journal for my English class. I wrote (or quoted someone) that what for most of mankind was an object of dreams and imagination had now been transformed into real estate.

  67. 67.

    patrick II

    I watched the moon landing in the a Navy barrack’s tv room in Kamiseya, Japan. I couldn’t understand a word of the commentary, but amazed and proud would pretty well describe our reaction.

  69. 69.

    Dnfree

    I was a programmer at Argonne National Laboratory, and of course that group had to watch the moon landing. Someone “smuggled” in a small portable TV and we couldn’t see much but it was thrilling anyway.

  70. 70.

    scav

    I alas somehow have a most ill-regulated brain. I remember watching Apollo 8 but not 11 — in fact 8 is one of the few things I do remember from that age. There’s simply no way with my father in the household that we would have omitted watching, at least I’m sure of that.

  71. 71.

    Major Major Major Major

    @??‍? Martin:

    I very closely follow what SpaceX is doing. Their approach is fairly similar to how the apollo program was organized – rapid iteration, and experimenting on the fly. Its worked well for them so far. Hoping that continues.

    Works great for software, but only feasible for a space program if you’re a well-funded government agency or a mad scientist billionaire.

  74. 74.

    Anne Laurie

    @EBT: Looks like you’re right about that!:

    The anime adaptation of Planetes began airing its 26-episode run on NHK BS-2 on October 4, 2003 and ended on February 23, 2004.[29][30][31] Produced and animated by Sunrise, it was directed by Gorō Taniguchi and scripted by Ichirō Ōkouchi.[32] The anime began development and production before the end of the manga serialization. In the beginning and middle of the series, the writing and production staff only had the first three volumes of the manga as source. In order to fill the entire 26-episode run of the anime, new characters, new settings and new relationships between characters were made in order to increase dramatic tension, reinforce themes introduced in the manga, and introduce new themes that were compatible with the manga. While the manga deals more with existential themes, and humanity’s relationship with space, the anime further expands the political elements of the story.

    … and I hadn’t realized the team working on Planetes was doing Twin Spica at the same time! TS is one of the most charming anime I’ve ever watched — it reminded me very much of a Heinlein YA novel, but with less blatant sexism / authoritarianism. Also has one of the best opening themes ever:

  75. 75.

    ??‍? Martin

    @Major Major Major Major: I think Musks modular approach, not unlike Amazons modular approach, apply here as well. SpaceX isn’t interested in developing a fleet of rockets of differing capabilities. If you can recover stages, then it doesn’t matter if you are using too much rocket, as it’s only costing you fuel, which is negligible. So you stay focused on that one product and iterate the shit out of it, and because you are recovering, you are learning a fuckton more than the other guys. Hell, NASA didn’t even know if supersonic retropropulsion was possible until SpaceX did it.

  78. 78.

    Mike J

    @??‍? Martin: NASA could have done a lot more with reusable craft had they not been required to satisfy the Pentagon. Their plan was never to fly a huge lumbering freighter for 30 years. They designed something closer to a sports car that they planned on replacing often. What they had to build was so expensive they never got to update it. That whole project was a rathole.

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    ObOpenThread – CrowdPac:

    Why you should support this campaign

    Join Virginians raising money for 25 candidates who, with your support, will flip Virginia’s House of Delegates from red to blue on November 7.

    About Us. We are grassroots progressives who rolled up our sleeves after Donald Trump’s election. Members of groups such as WofA, Indivisible Arlington, Network NoVA, Virginia Democracy Forward, and Blue NoVA. You can see our names on the list of contributors. United in our commitment to government that reflects neighbors helping neighbors.

    Why these seats. Of the 25 candidates, 17 are running in districts Donald Trump lost, 3 are Democratic incumbents in marginal districts, and 5 are challenging in “stretch” districts we can flip. If we hold our 3 and flip 17, Democrats will take a 51-49 majority.

    […]

    Here’s hoping these important races get more visibility. Flipping the VA HoD is an important step in turning around the ship of state here. It’s similar all across the country. As lowkell says, :

    I’d remind everyone that Jon Ossoff raised around $24 million for one U.S. House special election, and that the money came from all over the country. Well, guess what national progressives? That’s right, the only other chance you’ve got this year to help Democrats make serious gains comes in the form of Virginia’s House of Delegates. But wait, you say, that’s not a single race, nor is it a federal race; how does THAT help hit back at Trump? Simple: Democrats desperately need to take back state legislatures and governor’s mansions across the country if we’re ever going to be a national party again, also if we’re going to have a say in 2021 redistricting (which will massively impact Congressional districts), etc. Plus, of course, tons of important policies on everything we all care about are enacted – or stopped – at the state level. So…this really isn’t that complicated if you think about it for more than about 0.1 seconds.

    All of us are affected by state policies, so we all need to work to make them better when we can.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    opiejeanne

    @Another Scott: We have an election (Primary) that ends on August 1 in Washington. I can’t remember if we have enough seats open to flip the state Senate, but the Senate seat for my district is open and the Republican candidate moved to our district two months ago in order to run. The Democrat is a prosecutor who has lived here for many years. The problem is that the Republican has a “white” last name and the Democrat does not. We watched an excellent candidate for school board in Santa Ana lose to a complete head case because of this exact issue, and a similar outcome for an elected judge’s seat elsewhere in Southern California.

  87. 87.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Mike J: The problem with a “sports-car” passenger-carrying spacecraft is the necessity to be able to launch multiple vehicles in rapid succession and get them to rendezvous in orbit quickly otherwise the passengers are “spam in a can” and can’t do anything once they get there except go round and round before coming back down again. Back in the day that was a real problem.

    The Shuttle solved that problem by launching the freighter/workshop/EVA support/lab facility/manipulator arm/orbital manoeuvering part of the mission with the passengers on board, similar to the Apollo missions which fired everything necessary for the mission into orbit one big lump. We’ve got better at rapid-tempo launches and rendezvous in orbit is a solved problem after a lot of practical experience, much of it carried out by the Shuttle. At the moment, assuming Dragon X flies with passengers the only place it can go is to the ISS which is starting to wear out and will probably not last another ten years. After that there’s maybe the Bigelow habitats but they’re tourist hotel rooms not workspaces and Dragon X has no EVA capability, no workshop space, no manipulator arm, limited orbital manoeuvering capability, no toilet, no shower and limited cargo capacity for freight. We need another cargo ship with those facilities onboard for human beings to do useful work in orbit and there’s nothing, not even blue-sky bullshit on the horizon to meet that demand. The Chinese have a small modular space station that might meet some of the need but it’s not a complete solution.

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