Moon Landing - Where were you?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Okay, I know this is only relevant to baby boomers like me, but where were you and what were you doing 40 years ago as Neil Armstrong made that great leap?

Me? I was a keen university student waiting for my lecturer to turn up for a Physics lecture. He eventually did about 90 minutes later and told us all, without apology, that he was watching the landing. "What did you expect?" was his response when asked where he was.

So I was wasting my time. What about you?

OK, I'll admit my age. I was in high school. I was out with my friends at a drive in movie (common in California at the time.) It was a nice evening. We were outside the car looking at what I think was a full Moon (could be a false memory). We talked about the wonder of the fact someone was walking on that Moon right then.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Non-existent, for another 3 years. There are a lot of old farts on the forum!

We prefer the term "youth-challenged flatulations"!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Tables have turned, since Americans seem to be in awe of all things Australian, such as Elle McPhereson, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman ...

[sidetrack]That's what you think is "all things Australian"?

Kangaroos, Koalas, Ayers Rock, Aboriginals, Sydney Opera House, recent devastating brush fires, outback, Great Barrier Reef

Those are the first things that come to mind as stereotypically Australian.[/sidetrack]

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was in the Air Force, stationed at Pope AFB, NC, doing my last shift before taking off on leave, to Seattle.

Some of the guys at the fire station were excited to be watching it, some were saying "So what?"

One was muttering something about "blasphemy.."

I never felt totally comfortable in North Carolina.

You mean someone thought leaving the Earth was against God's rules? What like the tower of Babel sin? Whoa.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I've still got the large St. Louis Post Dispatch issue from that date.

I remember nearly all the adverts tied in to the landing. I also remember an article that showed the Pope looking through a telescope.

Maybe I'll take it out and look through it again.

If anyone's interested, I could scan a few interesting bits of it to share.

ETA: I misspoke. It wasn't the Post; it was the St. Louis Globe Democrat, a paper that has long since folded.

ETA: I misspoke when I said I misspoke. I've got the Post for the moon landing. I've got the Globe for the Apollo-Soyuz rendevous in 1975 and the Globe for the Challenger disaster in '86.

 

[lionking]

If anyone's interested, I could scan a few interesting bits of it to share.

Please do.

 

[666]

Here...

No TV. Listening to VoA shortwave transmissions.

 

[lionking]

By the way, I was listening to breakfast radio yesterday where the host was talking, quite seriously, about the moon landing being a hoax and trotting out all the old discredited "facts" (the flag fluttering, no dust being kicked up when the lander took off etc). Two callers rang agreeing and it took a third to make the point that is was a bit early to be smoking crack.

Anyway moon hoax idiocy is obviously alive and well in Australia.

 

[Thunder]

So I was wasting my time. What about you?

I was a wee spermy swimming around me dad.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

You didn't see it live, that's for sure. Shop would have been shut.

Rolfe.

Nice try but TV and radio shops often (and still do) leave one or more TVs running in their windows over night and all weekend long.

 

[Rolfe]

Nice try but TV and radio shops often (and still do) leave one or more TVs running in their windows over night and all weekend long.

In Fort William? Shirley, you jest!

Rolfe.

 

[shadron]

Non-existent, for another 3 years. There are a lot of old farts on the forum!

...and a lot of young stinkers, too.

 

[Morrigan]

I am jealous that I couldn't have witnessed this moment on live TV Wow, you people are like, old and stuff.

I am not sure my parents had met yet, but ny oldest brother was born five years later, and I was born eight years after him, so, yeah... not even close to being conceived yet.

 

[Giraffe107]

-snip-

Anyway moon hoax idiocy is obviously alive and well in Australia.

Yes, on that Talkin' About Your Generation show last week that bimbo Kate Langbroek was saying she believed it was a hoax. Almost threw the TV out of the window.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was a wee spermy swimming around me dad.

Disowned your mom's side of the family did you?

 

[Kestrel]

As one might expect of a high school space geek, I was glued to the TV.

 

[Whiplash]

I was something like 9 months old. So I was probably in the arms of my mother or father, drooling and babbling incoherently.

So no real change, I know...

 

[TheJim]

I was in the Nevada dessert at the NASA/Lockheed Martin sound stage trying to fix the damn back light that kept going out that prevented the back drop of stars to show on the broadcast. Buzz kept cracking jokes about no one believing this or his acting so our buddy ZeXroaa the Grey told him just to punch one or two.

For real I was not born for nearly another decade. The first big moment I remember was the Challenger explosion that I actually saw in the flesh when I was in the second grade after just moving to Florida.

 

[shandyjan]

I was in junior school, I remember a tv in school for the first time ever, it was on all day in the main hall. The landing would have happened after school closed, but I dont remember seeing it live with my parents, I probably went to play out! I must have been 10!

 

[Audible Click]

I was a young wife and mother and absolutely entranced by the broadcast in living black and white.