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Walking on the moon.


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I know the anniversary isn't until the 20th, but I figure I'd beat the rush. :)

 

Who remembers seeing it on TV in all its grainy black and white glory? It is hard to believe it's been 40 years... but it's still an amazing achievement IMO.

 

Jim Lovell: "From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And it's not a miracle, we just decided to go." Apollo 13

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I remember seeing it at my great aunt's house, on her set with bad vertical hold (the picture would occasionally roll).

 

Read an article today in the paper - NASA discovered that they must have taped over the original first steps on the moon video. They're having to pull it back together from four other copies.

 

Galactical Epic Fail.

 

js

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I remember I was 9 and we lived in North Hollywood. My Dad finally decided that was the day we would get a color TV so the family (Mom, Dad, sister and me) went to the local Sears (or equivalent) store and bought a 19" color model.

When the moon landing footage aired it was, of course, in black and white. No real big deal though, I know I enjoyed watching Batman and The Monkees in color from then on!

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Apparently they lost the original video footage of the first walk !!

 

Here's a restored version using digital enhancement, still crappy.

 

I heard that the format that came Via the Parkes Radio Telescope wasn't in a broadcast video format so what you see is a video of a black and white monitor shot with a standard TV camera.

 

[YOUTUBE]Vml7pZJujF0[/YOUTUBE]

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I was a kid, but I remember that like yesterday too. I was in a military (Air Force) family and town, so we had to watch it or else! :D

 

But seriously of course we wanted to watch it. I remember the whole family being around the TV... dad, mom, little sis, two big sisters and me... and my Major Matt Mason, all sitting there in stunned silence, hanging on Walter Cronkite's every word. What an event... still amazes me.

 

[YOUTUBE]AlvEGR1hhk8[/YOUTUBE]

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18 years old, just completed the first year of college. Watched it at the parent's house in the basement on our Zenith b&w set. My uncle worked at the Cape and knew all the astronauts at the time (he was a real rocket scientist). I suspect he had a great view of the happenings of the day.

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Anyone here entertained the idea that the
first
moonwalk was staged?

 

Some say it was just enhanced because they weren't getting a good video feed and really needed the press on that one. One has to remember the context of this achievement and the way they used it to promote a certain ideology during the cold war.

 

Most of what I've seen concerning the "faked" moon landing didn't convince me either way, so I really don't know.

 

I did find the "we lost the original tapes" thing to be highly entertaining knowing the fake moon landing people will go nutzo. :)

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I remember it quite well. That old Sears television we had; sucker ran for years. Mom and Dad graciously let me have preemptive say over t.v. programming that summer, because I was so into all of it and they were enthused about my enthusiasm, not to mention in awe of it all themselves.

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Some say it was just enhanced because they weren't getting a good video feed and really needed the press on that one. One has to remember the context of this achievement and the way they used it to promote a certain ideology during the cold war.


Most of what I've seen concerning the "faked" moon landing didn't convince me either way, so I really don't know.


I did find the "we lost the original tapes" thing to be highly entertaining knowing the fake moon landing people will go nutzo.
:)

 

It's the opposite. The raw signal was higher resolution and not compatible with broadcast TV at the time. The raw signal was recorded to tape for posterity, while simultaneously down-converted for broadcast.

 

The original higher resolution tapes were stored without proper safeguards in a disorganized warehouse, and were eventually reused to capture mundane satellite data when the glut of satellite data was exceeding NASA's tape supply.

 

Erasing those tapes was one of the dumbest, sloppiest, most idiotic mistakes ever made in the history of human beings. It's inconceivable that those tapes were treated so casually. Even then, their value was known. That one of the most important tapes of one of the most important moments in human history would be so sloppily stored, and inadvertently erased is treason against humanity.

 

Given all the incontrovertible facts of the moon landing, anyone who believes it's a conspiracy is going out of their way to stick their head in the sand, and it requires the patience of Geoff to respond to them in any other way than House on a bad day.

 

But erasing those tapes is almost as bad as landing on the Moon was good.

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It's the opposite. The raw signal was higher resolution and not compatible with broadcast TV at the time. The raw signal was recorded to tape for posterity, while simultaneously down-converted for broadcast.

 

I recall watching a program a few years ago, where it was revealed that the tapes were recorded in a format that was pretty much NASA-specific, that there was only one machine capable of playing them back, and that no one was either a) doing anything to maintain/repair the machine, or b) trying to find a workaround.

 

...and it requires the patience of Geoff to respond to them in any other way than House on a bad day.

 

:lol:

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I recall watching a program a few years ago, where it was revealed that the tapes were recorded in a format that was pretty much NASA-specific, that there was only one machine capable of playing them back, and that no one was either a) doing anything to maintain/repair the machine, or b) trying to find a workaround.

 

 

There was actually a quiet but vigorous effort to find a workaround. The machine itself, while proprietary, was trivial in that it could either be restored (or a new one could always be built from scratch). The key was the tapes. Sadly, they failed.

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dang - I thought this was gonna be a Police thread.

:cop:

OK, now it is!!!

 

 

As far as the original post, I recall watching it with my Mum & Sis. Sis was about 8 or 9 years old & up way past her bedtime.

We woke her to see the event when it actually came on (sometime well past midnight in the USA).

While the astronautigans were gallivanting about up there under lessened moon gravity, & being broadcast back with that splangey, harsh lighting, one of them came leaping back into the frame toward the other.

My sister screamed & shot upright, declaring that a moon monster was about to "get" the guy ! :D

 

FWIW, that's about how much value we should put into the continuing rigamorole about the whole thing being a fake staged event.

That makerel's been dragged around for decades & is stunningly moronic, really.

Let's see...we've got Easter Island, the Pyramids, life itself to consider.

What's so hard to believe about people achieving travel to the moon ?

I bet most of the people who drag that old chestnut out have little difficulty thinking that Star Trek's a likelihood. :rolleyes:

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BTW, I can't recall who but one of the "astronauts" (not from the early missions) who's been to the moon is a painter & actually sets a bit of moondust into some of his creations.

 

 

That would be Alan Bean (LM pilot Apollo 12). Some of his pieces are on display at the Air and Space Museum in DC.

 

Dave Foley did a funny take on Bean in HBO's "From The Earth To The Moon".

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I was 15.

We were in my friends basement having band practice.

We tuned in at the assigned time and my friends dad actually poured us each a shot of whisky.

This was very unusual for a parental unit a the time. However, he was very pumped by the event.

We all chugged our shots together as that fateful last step was taken and those famous words mis-spoken.

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