Commemorating 40th Year of Moon Landing - 20th July 1969

by SamirJ | July 4, 2009 at 11:47 am

764 views | 76 Recommendations | 11 comments

"One small step for man is a giant leap for mankind". Yeah those were the words when 40 years ago Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on Moon. It did not transform into a giant leap for space travel for future but it sure has given us amazing memories of the same. Read on!

Forty years ago, the world stopped turning just for a minute, and everyone looked up.

Schools and workplaces in America came to a halt, while little boys and girls across Scotland were dragged out of their beds to see the most important footprint in the history of the human race being set into the lunar dust.

At 3am on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong lowered himself down gently from the Eagle lander and became the first human on the moon.

Armstrong, an Ohio-born fighter pilot turned astronaut, was quickly followed on to the moon's surface by fellow space travellers Buzz Aldrin. But it was 39-year-old Neil who became the ultimate icon in human exploration, and the most famous First in our history.

A few years later, Armstrong enjoyed another big first when he brought Scotland right into the space age by acknowledging his important Scots roots, and visited his ancestral family seat in Langholm, becoming the first and only man to receive the freedom of the tiny Borders town.

But 40 years later, even the generations who consider the Apollo programme the subject of history books and the movies, the moon landing is the lasting image of the space era.

And with the memory of Scots-descended Armstrong and his brave colleagues lasting strong in the public consciousness, there is still a lot for us to stop to look up to.

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Roy C

at 11:56 on July 4th, 2009

As someone born before it happened, I remember asking my father when we would get to the moon, and he answered that it wouldn't be for a long time. He was wrong.

The whole neighborhood was out on the steps of our row-houses in Philadelphia in the summer of the Sputnik. As it passed overhead, we marvelled at it and worried about the Russians getting ahead of us.

What really blew me away, though, was not the moon landing, but the December '68 orbiting of the moon. When that happened, the moon landing was a foregone conclusion.

robert vida (not verified)

at 03:09 on July 16th, 2009

if one landed and i doubt it

the americans and what /whom they are ie the government why is it with 40years on their egos didnt organise a 40 year landing celebration

if they did land they would have organized it ,believe me

what 40 years on and no other landings,think about it

Amy Judd

at 11:59 on July 4th, 2009

I can't believe it's been forty years!

SamirJ

at 12:11 on July 4th, 2009

Yeah... Its been 40 years since the giant leap. Hope that we just don't keep counting the years, year after year!

albertacowpoke

at 12:15 on July 4th, 2009

I remember watching the moonlanding on black and white fuzzy screen on a tv in Germany. That was long before the time of colour tv and cable. It's amazing how the world has changed since then. Thanks for the memories:)

Barbara McPherson

at 12:45 on July 4th, 2009

That was only 40 years ago but what a different time. The Sputnik changed our school system here. No more fooling around, science and math were king. It wouldn't be long until we had colonies on Mars let alone the moon. And much of the calculations were done with sliderules! Thanks for the memories.

patgarcia

at 15:13 on July 4th, 2009

Wow! I remember that day, I was a child.

John_Disney (not verified)

at 23:45 on July 4th, 2009

The fact that nobody has made it for the last forty years proves that moon landing was faked. Even today Russia, China and any other European countries combined have not been able to achieve this dream with today's technological backbone!

Accept it, it was a fake.

Babel-Fish

at 00:19 on July 5th, 2009

No they brought back some rock that had the words moon stamped with the full postal address, lol Its that damn flag blowing in the wind that gives the game away and the rattle snake wriggling in the moon dust, lol

neilabraham

at 21:04 on July 5th, 2009

Actually, the moon landing did happen.

NASA makes a good point when they said on their website, "The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn't return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth."

One of the many disproved theories about the landing being faked was, "Why aren't here any stars on any of the moon surface photos?" The answer was obvious to photographers but news to the masses. No camera, not even a Hasselblad could capture both the extreme bright sunlight in the foreground and also the dim stars in the background.

The flag waving theory was also disproved. It moved due to the thin arm used to support the flag continued to wave, not due to "Lunar wind" but due to kinetic energy in the arm and the fabric still moving it about due to lack of gravity and wind.

Read more about how ALL the fake theories have been debunked:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23Feb_2.htm

neilabraham

at 16:42 on July 5th, 2009

I was only a child when Neil stepped onto the moon, but I remember my parents calling me in to watch it on TV! My school teachers used to call me "Neil Armstrong" and I thought it was great!

I've visited the Australian deep space tracking stations that assisted with the moon missions.

The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex is still operational today and a great tourist attraction. I've been there many times to check it out. It's the next best thing to a NASA visit.

CDSCC
http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/

The Parkes dish made famous by the movie "The Dish" is also a great place to visit. While the Dish Movie is not technically 100% correct on the actual role that the Parkes dish played in the mission, it's well worth watching if you haven't seen it! It was actually the Honeysuckle Creek dish that provided the first audiovisual feeds when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.

CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope:
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/visiting/parkes/

The Dish Movie:
http://thedishmovie.warnerbros.com/index_noflash.html

Mike Dinn's Dish Movie Rebuttal
(Honeysuckle Ck Station Director during the landing)
http://members.pcug.org.au/~mdinn/TheDish/index.htm

Unfortunately, the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station is now a cleared concrete slab but set in a beautiful forest. It's a great family picnic spot and is easy to drive to, about 45 mins drive south of Canberra.

Read more about Honeysuckle Creek station here:
http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/

Congratulations NASA on the 40th Anniversary of the moon landing!