6 ms·

Apollo 11 50th Anniversary

135 points by SpaceInvader 7y ago

LeonM 7y ago
Not so much an article about the 50th anniversary, but just the main article about Apollo 11. If you are into space stuff, and haven't seen it yet, there were some pretty cool projects going on on Youtube in preparation for the 50th anniversary: - CuriousMarc's restoration series of an actual ACG [0] - Applied Science made a replica DSKY electroluminescent glass panel display [1] - Project Egress: A maker collaboration on building a replica of the Apollo 11 door (Adam Savage, Jimmy Diresta, This old tony, Blondihacks, etc) [2] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegress https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegres...
pcardoso 7y ago
Just a reminder that in 40mins time the real time simulation will take off: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/ https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/
- djaychela 7y ago
  I'd seen the site before, but thanks for the timely reminder. I'm too young to have seen the real launch, but there's something special about being able to watch the launch on this site, time-shifted by 50 years. Thanks!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- scrumper 7y ago
  This is amazing, I'd vaguely heard of this but not visited before. What a resource!
kitd 7y ago
My main gripe against my otherwise entirely loving parents was that they didn't get me up in the middle of the night to watch the landings on TV when I was little!
musgravepeter 7y ago
The BBC podcast "13 minutes to the moon" is very worth-while.
Tepix 7y ago
If you missed the documentary "Apollo 11" in cinemas, you can watch "Moonwalk One" (1970) on youtube in its entirety at https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg It features quite a few of the same scenes, alas in lower visual fidelity. Description: This film details the comprehensive coverage surrounding the July 1969 launch of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. The film details activities of both the astronauts and mission control during pre-launch and launch sequences, daily activities aboard the spacecraft and the moonwalk, and provides a view of the historical and cultural events of the time. The footage includes clips from science fiction television shows such as "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers," as well as a lengthy segment on American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. The film also explores some of the critical preliminary stages of the Apollo program, including medical testing of the human body in space conditions, as well as the assembly and testing of space suits as worn by the astronauts. ARC Identifier 1257628 / Local Identifier 255-HQ-199 National Archives and Records Administration Moonwalk One, ca. 1970
- AndrewOMartin 7y ago
  UK based people with a TV license can watch "8 days to the moon and back" on BBC iPlayer. I've seen both Apollo 11 and 8 days to the moon and back, and while there are stylistic differences, the power is much the same. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006p5f/8-days-to-the-moon-and-back https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006p5f/8-days-to-the...
- scott_s 7y ago
  "Apollo 11" is available for purchase, both digitally and physically. It's one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, as it creates a narrative out of the footage without using any interviews or actual narration.
areoform 7y ago
I have been meditating on Neil Armstrong's spirit. Project Apollo and his legacy in the long lens of history. At the start of Apollo, no one ever expected it to be this impactful. They knew that they were making history, but they simultaneously overestimated the short-term enthusiasm for their project and underestimated its long-term impact. Most people at the time misunderstood the program and thought that it would be just one note in a longer symphony. But then we didn't go back to the moon. We prioritized the F-35s of the world before achievements like Apollo, and that note became the one and only note most people had ever heard. The astronauts themselves didn't attempt to be this famous or be this defined by this achievement. This misunderstanding became much clearer when the program ended and all of the Apollo astronauts faced an existential crisis and a deep depression following their crowning achievement. Their lives - the lives of some of the smartest and most driven people to ever live - peaked in their 40's and that was it. It's hard to imagine a different perception of Apollo than the one we have right now, but again hindsight is different than foresight. The agency didn't seem to grasp the magnitude of their achievement - look at how they treated the original video tapes that had been transformed for live TV video. It was a thing, it happened and that was that. The rockets, science etc were more valuable and no one was focused on the mission itself from our current hagiographic perspective. Their oversight came with a cost. No one - not even NASA - realized the obvious at the time; the astronauts were never going to be human beings after their moon walks. They were going to be such and such who walked on the moon. And in a way - in the eyes of history - every act following that point was essentially a footnote. After all, how the heck do you top walking on the moon? This burden was further magnified for Armstrong. Most of us forget the depth of his fame. Carl Sagan wrote about an anecdote where an anthropologist told him that a previously uncontacted tribe (or rather assumed to be uncontacted tribe) asked about Apollo 11 and if it was true if human beings had indeed walked on the moon. Try to put yourself in his shoes and lift the weight he carried. Try to imagine being Neil Armstrong and waking up every single day with the weight that every literate child in the world will learn your name until humanity itself ceases to be. He became The First Man - not a person who was allowed to make mistakes. No, that was too undignified for The First Man. And he hated every second of it. He refused to sign autographs. He stopped going out into public. Stopped giving interviews. (IIRC, the last one he gave was to an accountant https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil-armstrong-grants-rare-interview-accountant/327730/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil-ar...) And chose to live his life as a recluse. But perhaps, this tendency is why he was chosen in the first place. Deke Slayton and the other administrators, wisely, knew that he would be a better First Man than someone like Aldrin, who can be described in the most charitable of terms as a fame whore. http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709 And so one of the most shy and cerebral men of his generation was chosen to be a "living monument." And perhaps a monument to the American era as a whole. As of writing, Armstrong is already more famous than Alexander the Great - after whom at least three major languages have literally defined the word "great." (even now his name isn't Alexander of Macedonia, but Alexander the Great.) And Alexander himself will be forgotten before Armstrong is. He is without a doubt, the most famous human to ever exist. And long after the American empire ceases to be, he will still be remembered as an example of what we achieved. Barring a calamity, he will be remembered for all time as long as human beings are alive. It was a very heavy burden, but Armstrong bore it with grace. Perhaps with greater grace than Washington himself, who exemplified the ideal of doing your service and saying goodbye to retire to a farm. Beyond his technical mind. I am in awe of him as a human being. The more I learn about him, the more I admire him. You should read more about him here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space/armstrong1.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space...
cmpb 7y ago
As a citizen of the United States (who came of age well after this event took place), I've only ever been told that this was an act of heroic success, something to be proud of, something that America should be proud of. I'm curious what the reception to this was outside of the U.S. Especially, e.g., to someone living in the USSR, what was it like hear that someone else had put a man on the moon?
- SpaceInvader 7y ago
  I'm from Poland, my father told me that everyone here was excited as well and that this topic dominated conversations for weeks here.
- Methuselah007 7y ago
  It never happened. That was my reception.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Well, I'm from the UK and I definitely think that it is something you should be proud of - it was awesome and the astronauts, all of them, true heroes. NB I apparently watched the Apollo 11 landing at the age of 4 and was utterly obsessed with it for many years as a kid.
- Tepix 7y ago
  I'm too young to have witnessed it myself but my impression is that the US astronauts were making it clear they were representing all of humanity.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Seem to recall seeing a documentary that said at first the USSR ignored the moon landing and once word leaked in, covered it in a very casual passing manner like one would a story about the wedding of a local politician. I do wonder if the genesis of the moon landing was a hoax story was some propaganda group within the Soviet government. If so, they got a lot of bang for their ruble.
- wobbleblob 7y ago
accosine 7y ago
Wow, didn't realize GraphQL ist THAT old!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
swsieber 7y ago
So one of my friends is like "Moon landing is fake, here's a bunch of reasons". One of them was the shadows in the photos not acting like the come from a single distanct lightsource. Since this popped up here today, and I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable than I, I'd like to ask: What's up with the shadows in this picture? (it's one from wikipedia page) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_sal... They seem odd. Thanks in advance for any insights.
- djaychela 7y ago
  When you say 'odd', can you be more specific? If you think they aren't parallel, then I would suggest that is purely down the the terrain. They look fine to me. Have a look at the clavius moon base site [1] for much better informed discussion of any issues your friend may have. [1] - http://clavius.org/ http://clavius.org/
- teraflop 7y ago
  The other thing you might be subconsciously noticing as "odd" is the varying depth or darkness of the shadows. The lunar surface is only illuminated by direct sunlight in an otherwise black sky, so the shadows cast by Aldrin and the lander appear pitch-black. But Aldrin himself is being lit by both direct sunlight and indirect light bouncing off the surface, so the shadowed side of his suit still appears diffusely illuminated. It makes sense when you stop to think about it (and you can fairly easily recreate the phenomenon in a raytracer) but it looks unnatural because we're used to direct sunlight always being accompanied by indirect skylight.
- rement 7y ago
  Instead of always trying to debunk conspiracy theories we can also talk about some of the proof that astronauts went to the moon. See if they can debunk that. For example, every mission with Extravehicular activity brought back samples of moon rock (some collecting over 100kg). I find that to be pretty conclusive.
  - mrlala 7y ago
tectonic 7y ago
We just sent out our 50th Anniversary special issue of The Orbital Index: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/ https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/
Animats 7y ago
And it's not even front page news.
piyushpr134 7y ago
As we recall Apollo 11, let us not forget about the rocket. Funny XKCD strip: https://xkcd.com/984/ https://xkcd.com/984/
novaRom 7y ago
With increased progress in robotics there will be even less reasons to send people not just to the moon but even to low Earth orbit. If you downvote, please explain why you disagree.
Tylast 7y ago
New Atlas had the best story about it (out of all the obligatory stories) this week: https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/ https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/

135 points by SpaceInvader 7y ago

Not so much an article about the 50th anniversary, but just the main article about Apollo 11. If you are into space stuff, and haven't seen it yet, there were some pretty cool projects going on on Youtube in preparation for the 50th anniversary: - CuriousMarc's restoration series of an actual ACG [0] - Applied Science made a replica DSKY electroluminescent glass panel display [1] - Project Egress: A maker collaboration on building a replica of the Apollo 11 door (Adam Savage, Jimmy Diresta, This old tony, Blondihacks, etc) [2] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegress https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23projectegres...

pcardoso 7y ago

Just a reminder that in 40mins time the real time simulation will take off: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/ https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

djaychela 7y ago
I'd seen the site before, but thanks for the timely reminder. I'm too young to have seen the real launch, but there's something special about being able to watch the launch on this site, time-shifted by 50 years. Thanks!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
scrumper 7y ago
This is amazing, I'd vaguely heard of this but not visited before. What a resource!

kitd 7y ago

My main gripe against my otherwise entirely loving parents was that they didn't get me up in the middle of the night to watch the landings on TV when I was little!

musgravepeter 7y ago

The BBC podcast "13 minutes to the moon" is very worth-while.

Tepix 7y ago

If you missed the documentary "Apollo 11" in cinemas, you can watch "Moonwalk One" (1970) on youtube in its entirety at https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg https://youtu.be/9GVpoSrqMMg It features quite a few of the same scenes, alas in lower visual fidelity. Description: This film details the comprehensive coverage surrounding the July 1969 launch of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. The film details activities of both the astronauts and mission control during pre-launch and launch sequences, daily activities aboard the spacecraft and the moonwalk, and provides a view of the historical and cultural events of the time. The footage includes clips from science fiction television shows such as "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers," as well as a lengthy segment on American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. The film also explores some of the critical preliminary stages of the Apollo program, including medical testing of the human body in space conditions, as well as the assembly and testing of space suits as worn by the astronauts. ARC Identifier 1257628 / Local Identifier 255-HQ-199 National Archives and Records Administration Moonwalk One, ca. 1970

AndrewOMartin 7y ago
UK based people with a TV license can watch "8 days to the moon and back" on BBC iPlayer. I've seen both Apollo 11 and 8 days to the moon and back, and while there are stylistic differences, the power is much the same. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006p5f/8-days-to-the-moon-and-back https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006p5f/8-days-to-the...
scott_s 7y ago
"Apollo 11" is available for purchase, both digitally and physically. It's one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, as it creates a narrative out of the footage without using any interviews or actual narration.

areoform 7y ago

I have been meditating on Neil Armstrong's spirit. Project Apollo and his legacy in the long lens of history. At the start of Apollo, no one ever expected it to be this impactful. They knew that they were making history, but they simultaneously overestimated the short-term enthusiasm for their project and underestimated its long-term impact. Most people at the time misunderstood the program and thought that it would be just one note in a longer symphony. But then we didn't go back to the moon. We prioritized the F-35s of the world before achievements like Apollo, and that note became the one and only note most people had ever heard. The astronauts themselves didn't attempt to be this famous or be this defined by this achievement. This misunderstanding became much clearer when the program ended and all of the Apollo astronauts faced an existential crisis and a deep depression following their crowning achievement. Their lives - the lives of some of the smartest and most driven people to ever live - peaked in their 40's and that was it. It's hard to imagine a different perception of Apollo than the one we have right now, but again hindsight is different than foresight. The agency didn't seem to grasp the magnitude of their achievement - look at how they treated the original video tapes that had been transformed for live TV video. It was a thing, it happened and that was that. The rockets, science etc were more valuable and no one was focused on the mission itself from our current hagiographic perspective. Their oversight came with a cost. No one - not even NASA - realized the obvious at the time; the astronauts were never going to be human beings after their moon walks. They were going to be such and such who walked on the moon. And in a way - in the eyes of history - every act following that point was essentially a footnote. After all, how the heck do you top walking on the moon? This burden was further magnified for Armstrong. Most of us forget the depth of his fame. Carl Sagan wrote about an anecdote where an anthropologist told him that a previously uncontacted tribe (or rather assumed to be uncontacted tribe) asked about Apollo 11 and if it was true if human beings had indeed walked on the moon. Try to put yourself in his shoes and lift the weight he carried. Try to imagine being Neil Armstrong and waking up every single day with the weight that every literate child in the world will learn your name until humanity itself ceases to be. He became The First Man - not a person who was allowed to make mistakes. No, that was too undignified for The First Man. And he hated every second of it. He refused to sign autographs. He stopped going out into public. Stopped giving interviews. (IIRC, the last one he gave was to an accountant https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil-armstrong-grants-rare-interview-accountant/327730/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/neil-ar...) And chose to live his life as a recluse. But perhaps, this tendency is why he was chosen in the first place. Deke Slayton and the other administrators, wisely, knew that he would be a better First Man than someone like Aldrin, who can be described in the most charitable of terms as a fame whore. http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24709 And so one of the most shy and cerebral men of his generation was chosen to be a "living monument." And perhaps a monument to the American era as a whole. As of writing, Armstrong is already more famous than Alexander the Great - after whom at least three major languages have literally defined the word "great." (even now his name isn't Alexander of Macedonia, but Alexander the Great.) And Alexander himself will be forgotten before Armstrong is. He is without a doubt, the most famous human to ever exist. And long after the American empire ceases to be, he will still be remembered as an example of what we achieved. Barring a calamity, he will be remembered for all time as long as human beings are alive. It was a very heavy burden, but Armstrong bore it with grace. Perhaps with greater grace than Washington himself, who exemplified the ideal of doing your service and saying goodbye to retire to a farm. Beyond his technical mind. I am in awe of him as a human being. The more I learn about him, the more I admire him. You should read more about him here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space/armstrong1.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/space...

cmpb 7y ago

As a citizen of the United States (who came of age well after this event took place), I've only ever been told that this was an act of heroic success, something to be proud of, something that America should be proud of. I'm curious what the reception to this was outside of the U.S. Especially, e.g., to someone living in the USSR, what was it like hear that someone else had put a man on the moon?

SpaceInvader 7y ago
I'm from Poland, my father told me that everyone here was excited as well and that this topic dominated conversations for weeks here.
Methuselah007 7y ago
It never happened. That was my reception.
arethuza 7y ago
Well, I'm from the UK and I definitely think that it is something you should be proud of - it was awesome and the astronauts, all of them, true heroes. NB I apparently watched the Apollo 11 landing at the age of 4 and was utterly obsessed with it for many years as a kid.
Tepix 7y ago
I'm too young to have witnessed it myself but my impression is that the US astronauts were making it clear they were representing all of humanity.
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Seem to recall seeing a documentary that said at first the USSR ignored the moon landing and once word leaked in, covered it in a very casual passing manner like one would a story about the wedding of a local politician. I do wonder if the genesis of the moon landing was a hoax story was some propaganda group within the Soviet government. If so, they got a lot of bang for their ruble.
wobbleblob 7y ago

accosine 7y ago

Wow, didn't realize GraphQL ist THAT old!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

swsieber 7y ago

So one of my friends is like "Moon landing is fake, here's a bunch of reasons". One of them was the shadows in the photos not acting like the come from a single distanct lightsource. Since this popped up here today, and I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable than I, I'd like to ask: What's up with the shadows in this picture? (it's one from wikipedia page) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#/media/File:Buzz_sal... They seem odd. Thanks in advance for any insights.

djaychela 7y ago
When you say 'odd', can you be more specific? If you think they aren't parallel, then I would suggest that is purely down the the terrain. They look fine to me. Have a look at the clavius moon base site [1] for much better informed discussion of any issues your friend may have. [1] - http://clavius.org/ http://clavius.org/
teraflop 7y ago
The other thing you might be subconsciously noticing as "odd" is the varying depth or darkness of the shadows. The lunar surface is only illuminated by direct sunlight in an otherwise black sky, so the shadows cast by Aldrin and the lander appear pitch-black. But Aldrin himself is being lit by both direct sunlight and indirect light bouncing off the surface, so the shadowed side of his suit still appears diffusely illuminated. It makes sense when you stop to think about it (and you can fairly easily recreate the phenomenon in a raytracer) but it looks unnatural because we're used to direct sunlight always being accompanied by indirect skylight.
rement 7y ago
Instead of always trying to debunk conspiracy theories we can also talk about some of the proof that astronauts went to the moon. See if they can debunk that. For example, every mission with Extravehicular activity brought back samples of moon rock (some collecting over 100kg). I find that to be pretty conclusive.
- mrlala 7y ago

tectonic 7y ago

We just sent out our 50th Anniversary special issue of The Orbital Index: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/ https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2019-07-16-Issue-21/

Animats 7y ago

And it's not even front page news.

piyushpr134 7y ago

As we recall Apollo 11, let us not forget about the rocket. Funny XKCD strip: https://xkcd.com/984/ https://xkcd.com/984/

novaRom 7y ago

With increased progress in robotics there will be even less reasons to send people not just to the moon but even to low Earth orbit. If you downvote, please explain why you disagree.

Tylast 7y ago

New Atlas had the best story about it (out of all the obligatory stories) this week: https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/ https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-anniversary/59993/