July 20, 1969: One Small Step…

On July 20, 1969, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity. (Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)

This is just a reminder that 50 years ago, a human from Earth walked on the Moon.

And we have pictures.

The remote TV camera outside the lunar lander provided a fuzzy but reasonably good real-time image of Buzz Aldrin climbing backwards down the lander’s ladder to put a footprint on the ground there. It also sent back the view of the LEM lifting off when they were done and ready to return to the ‘mother ship”.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/13/apollo-11-at-50-celebrating-first-steps-on-another-world/

Pres. Nixon gave all government and military in the USA the day off to watch the event. I didn’t have a TV where I lived, so I went out to Clifton to watch it on Mrs. Ward’s TV with her family.

All that stuff is still up there: the Hasselblad cameras that were used by the astronauts (Aldrin and Armstrong) to photograph each other “walking” around in the Moon’s low gravity field. They left the cameras and took the film with them. NASA has a low-orbit satellite up there that has photographed the landing spot, which looks tiny. The flag is still there, but it’s bleached white by radiation. The moon buggy tracks and landing sites from later expeditions are still visible.

I pulled out my copy of Heinlein’s ‘Have Spacesuit – Will Travel”, written in 1956. The first time I read it was in the library downtown, and I sat on the floor, leaning against the bookstacks. My mother called the library to find out if I was still there and would they please tell me to come home?

But his description of the lunar surface that Kip and Peewee tried to hike across to escape Wormface was strangely accurate. The mountains may look rugged but when you get there, they’re not.

Now, we’re going back up there. Expanding our turf is what we hoomans do.

We also invent things: NASA has an orbiting parts-producing satellite that will make the parts for something, put them together, and set its trajectory.

 

 

Category: Historical