Apollo 11 50th Anniversary

[Dan]

Congratulations to all those involved in the Apollo program, what an amazing achievement!

I just finished watching the documentary "Chasing the Moon". Highly recommended for anyone interested in space exploration or contemporary history.

[StephenG1CMZ]

The achievement then was impressive. But most of the 50th Anniversary TV programmes were a disappointment.
I was expecting to hear the original proclamation "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
The way I remember hearing it in the uk was "That's one small step for [crackle] [pause] man..." and it sounded like it was spoken over a radio link. There was much debate at the time about whether the "a" was spoken - There was certainly a long enough crackle and pause that it could have been obscured.

All of the anniversary programmes I have heard instead read out "That's one small step for man" and most sounded like they were read in a quiet studio.

I know many technical logs and video tapes from the time have been deleted, but am surprised at the loss of that recording.

Perhaps that radio crackle was only heard in the uk?
As a very small celebration of that achievement I have written a simple Lunar program for the HP Prime:
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-13311.html

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(07-21-2019 09:41 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I know many technical logs and video tapes from the time have been deleted, but am surprised at the loss of that recording.

Really? Certainly not the originals. And I even doubt that many TV and radio stations have deleted these historical tapes. Several TV stations in Germany re-transmitted the original program of the event last night in full length. It looks as if there are plenty of copies of those tapes left, including crackling radio transmissions :-)

And by the way: There is presently a documentray film showing in varoiuis cinemas (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?re...f_=nv_sr_1) that contains lots of unseen material from the mission. This includes super-high qualtiy footage originally photographed on 70mm film. There is of course nothing new in that film, but the quality of the pictures alone makes it worth watching!

Regards
Max

[smp]

(07-21-2019 11:38 AM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  And by the way: There is presently a documentray film showing in varoiuis cinemas ...

Also available on DVD - highly recommended!

smp

[burkhard]

(07-21-2019 09:41 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  All of the anniversary programmes I have heard instead read out "That's one small step for man" and most sounded like they were read in a quiet studio.

I suspect that generalist producers, not understanding much about the proper re-use of historic archival audio, use some modern digital techniques to "clean up" the audio. They think they are doing the viewers a favor, and considering today's undereducated public raised on 4g and 1080p, and expecting crystal-clear free worldwide long distance telephony, that is perhaps the case. It does however, deceive the viewers more than a bit, I agree.

Whether "a" was or was not spoken is immaterial. Either usage is proper English. Omitting it is actually a bit more poetic. It's akin to John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, where the use of "ein", although not used in typical conversational speech, was deliberate and done for emphasis.

[toml_12953]

(07-21-2019 02:54 PM)burkhard Wrote:  Whether "a" was or was not spoken is immaterial. Either usage is proper English. Omitting it is actually a bit more poetic. It's akin to John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, where the use of "ein", although not used in typical conversational speech, was deliberate and done for emphasis.

Why would JFK say he's a jelly doughnut?

[StephenG1CMZ]

I have often wondered why that 70mm footage wasn't shown at the cinemas in the weeks following the mission, hoping at the time to see something clearer than the original live analogue broadcast. Must try to see that soon.
Glad to hear those crackles were not a faulty remembering on my part - I prefer the more accurate rendition, reminding us how easily contact might have been lost.

[ijabbott]

(07-21-2019 11:38 AM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Hello!

(07-21-2019 09:41 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I know many technical logs and video tapes from the time have been deleted, but am surprised at the loss of that recording.

Really? Certainly not the originals. And I even doubt that many TV and radio stations have deleted these historical tapes. Several TV stations in Germany re-transmitted the original program of the event last night in full length. It looks as if there are plenty of copies of those tapes left, including crackling radio transmissions :-)

The tapes that recorded the original SSTV transmissions (that were higher fidelity than broadcast NTSC) appear to have been erased sometime in the 1980s. See Apollo 11 missing tapes.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

Several original tapes were auctioned yesterday at Sothebys for 1.8 million dollars. See following:

Apollo 11 Tapes

The article mentioned that the auction included a hard drive with digitized copy of the tapes. That means someone digitized the tapes. I wonder if the company or person doing that kept a copy.

What's amazing is that apparently NASA sold the tapes as surplus in 1976.

Of course, without actually watching the tapes, there really no way to know what they really are or their quality.

It's a shame NASA didn't come up with two million dollars and buy them back. I'm sure NASA has a fund somewhere they could have used.

Hopefully whoever bought them will make the video available someday.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Thomas Okken]

I saw the CNN documentary film yesterday — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_(2019_film). It apparently consists entirely of archival footage, and I was amazed at how much there was that I had never seen before, and how high-quality it is. There's one shot in particular, taken by a camera aboard (I think) the second stage after it was jettisoned and starts slowly turning, no longer being steered, that is amazingly awesome. I highly recommend watching the whole film.

[JimP]

It would be interesting to know where people on this forum were 50 years ago (at least the ones who had been born already and can remember!)

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(07-23-2019 05:26 AM)JimP Wrote:  It would be interesting to know where people on this forum were 50 years ago (at least the ones who had been born already and can remember!)

For me it was the beginnnig of the first summer holidays after my first year of school. Luckily that week I was at my grandparent's house in Munich, because they had a TV set which my parents didn't have at that time. So they woke me up in the middle of the night and I could see the live pictures.

Regards
Max

[Paul Dale]

Watching it on television in a group at the only house in the street that owned one. My first time watching television.

Pauli

[Thomas Okken]

At home, too young to have even started going to kindergarten yet, too young to have any but the vaguest memories of the whole thing. We watched on our first TV, which we had bought only a few months earlier.

[toml_12953]

(07-23-2019 05:26 AM)JimP Wrote:  It would be interesting to know where people on this forum were 50 years ago (at least the ones who had been born already and can remember!)

I was 14 years old and went to Florida that summer to stay with my Grandmother near Venice. We drove across to the East coast and were right across the bay to watch the launch in person. The force of the launch was so great, It felt like someone had pushed on my gut and it made me want to cough. That was the most impressive man-made spectacle I'll ever see. For the first step on the moon, I watched TV. It must have been a CBS affiliate because I remember the pride in Walter Cronkite's voice when he said, "Man on the moon!" When Armstrong stepped out, we heard "That's one small step for Man, one giant leap for mankind." Years later, Armstrong admitted he meant to say "...for a man..." but was so excited, he blew it. I can't imagine why he would've been excited.

[Don Shepherd]

(07-23-2019 05:26 AM)JimP Wrote:  It would be interesting to know where people on this forum were 50 years ago (at least the ones who had been born already and can remember!)

Like Tom L, I was there at the launch! I was 18 and drove from Kentucky to Titusville, parked in a Post Office parking lot across from a Penneys store (along with hundreds of others), and brought my Super 8 movie camera so I could film the liftoff of Apollo 11, which was about 10 miles away. I've still got that film, but no projector to run it on, however I had it copied to DVD years ago.

That was undoubtedly America at it's finest.

I always regretted not meeting Neil Armstrong. After NASA, he taught at University of Cincinnati.

[Eddie W. Shore]

The Moon landing is an amazing achievement in history. I got goose bumps watching the landing and landing (off of YouTube rebroadcasts).

[Ken S]

(07-23-2019 05:26 AM)JimP Wrote:  It would be interesting to know where people on this forum were 50 years ago (at least the ones who had been born already and can remember!)

My father worked at Patric Air Force Base just south of the cape and we lived in Melbourne Beach about 20 miles South. We watched the launch from the beach across from our house. I was 8 years old and one of the strongest memories I have of the launch was the time delay between seeing the launch and hearing and feeling the launch. I think it was about a minute and a half so the rocket was aleady pretty small when the rumble hit.

[Dan]

(07-23-2019 10:31 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:  That was the most impressive man-made spectacle I'll ever see.

You may see it again, NASA's Artemis program is aiming to return to the moon by 2024.

(07-23-2019 12:55 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  I've still got that film, but no projector to run it on, however I had it copied to DVD years ago..

Upload it to YouTube.

[Don Shepherd]

(07-24-2019 03:45 AM)Dan Wrote:  Upload it to YouTube.

ok, here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7hQKIKoVHc&t=94s