McCall St. Brewer
Well-Known Member
I am 51, but SWMBO is only 37. She is reading about all the hoopla surrounding the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's setting foot on the moon and can't figure out what all the fuss is about. Now Walter Cronkite has died and she is wondering why everyone is all upset about that.
Did things change that much in just a few short years? I am not doing very well at explaining to her just how big the NASA missions during the 60's were. Today not very many people even pay attention to the space shuttle missions unless a disaster happens, but back in those days the eyes of the whole world (including mine) were on everything NASA (and the Soviet space agency) did.
I remember like it was yesterday sitting on the living room floor in front of our 19" b & w television. I would spend hour after hour staring at the image of those Mercury/Atlas rockets sitting on the pad at Cape Canaveral, while NASA worked through one seemingly endless delay after another. All the while I would have Walter Cronkite's reassuring voice providing all the latest updates.
Usually, but not always, the countdowns would resume at last and the liftoff would occur. It never seemed like anything would go right with the Mercury's.
When the Gemini program started I was older and in school, so it seemed like many of the launches were during the day time when I could no longer watch. But I would look forward all day to the CBS evening news where they would replay the launches. If a mission happened during summer vacation, I would stayed glued to the set watching space walks and rendevous's and dockings with Thor/Agenas.
After watching the struggles of the Mercury and Gemini missions, the Apollo missions that followed the tragic Apollo 1 were simply amazing. NASA had really gotten their sh*t together by then, and it was breathtaking all the amazing things they could do by then.
I remember sitting in a Holiday Inn with my family on the night of July 20, 1969 (we were, believe it or not, on the way to Florida that summer, where as part of our family vacation were were going to take a tour of the Kennedy Space Center) watching the grainy black and white images of Neil Armstrong climbing down the ladder and setting foot on the moon.
CBS showed shots from all over the world as people everywhere watched and cheered for the astronauts.
I am surprised that a few short years could make so much difference that my wife has such a hard time relating to how huge that was. No one had to explain anything to her when Michael Jackson died.
NASA is working on a new program to get us back to the moon now, but I wonder how many people are even aware of it? If you had told me back in 1969 that 40 years later we had not even tried to go to Mars, I would have thought you were crazy.
Did things change that much in just a few short years? I am not doing very well at explaining to her just how big the NASA missions during the 60's were. Today not very many people even pay attention to the space shuttle missions unless a disaster happens, but back in those days the eyes of the whole world (including mine) were on everything NASA (and the Soviet space agency) did.
I remember like it was yesterday sitting on the living room floor in front of our 19" b & w television. I would spend hour after hour staring at the image of those Mercury/Atlas rockets sitting on the pad at Cape Canaveral, while NASA worked through one seemingly endless delay after another. All the while I would have Walter Cronkite's reassuring voice providing all the latest updates.
Usually, but not always, the countdowns would resume at last and the liftoff would occur. It never seemed like anything would go right with the Mercury's.
When the Gemini program started I was older and in school, so it seemed like many of the launches were during the day time when I could no longer watch. But I would look forward all day to the CBS evening news where they would replay the launches. If a mission happened during summer vacation, I would stayed glued to the set watching space walks and rendevous's and dockings with Thor/Agenas.
After watching the struggles of the Mercury and Gemini missions, the Apollo missions that followed the tragic Apollo 1 were simply amazing. NASA had really gotten their sh*t together by then, and it was breathtaking all the amazing things they could do by then.
I remember sitting in a Holiday Inn with my family on the night of July 20, 1969 (we were, believe it or not, on the way to Florida that summer, where as part of our family vacation were were going to take a tour of the Kennedy Space Center) watching the grainy black and white images of Neil Armstrong climbing down the ladder and setting foot on the moon.
CBS showed shots from all over the world as people everywhere watched and cheered for the astronauts.
I am surprised that a few short years could make so much difference that my wife has such a hard time relating to how huge that was. No one had to explain anything to her when Michael Jackson died.
NASA is working on a new program to get us back to the moon now, but I wonder how many people are even aware of it? If you had told me back in 1969 that 40 years later we had not even tried to go to Mars, I would have thought you were crazy.