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50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing of Apollo 11


DonLever

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Today is 50th anniversary of the moon landing of Apollo 11. 

 

So does anyone here remember that day besides me?   I bet 90% of the people on this forum were not even born when the event occurred.

 

It was a big news back in 1969 with daily TV coverage and news paper coverage.   The internet was decades away.

 

Back in Vancouver, on July 20, 1969,   I remember the day as extremely hot, it must have in the mid 80's.   Back in 1969, there were only a few TV channels available and only through the air as there were no cable back then in our neighbourhood.  Like most people back then we had a B/W TV, colour TV was very expensive and few people could afford them.

 

The coverage I saw was on Channel 12, then known as KVOS, based in Bellingham.   It was a CBS affiliate.  Now KVOS is a channel that shows old TV shows.

 

So what did I see through our B/W TV?   Not much I have to say.   The image on our TV was very blurry.   The moment Neil Armstrong stepped on the moment, we could not really see what was going on.  It looked like white and black blobs.   Not impressive at all.

 

Fast followed to 2019,  TV documentaries on right now show the events in sharp re-mastered digital detail.  What a difference.

 

Edited by DonLever
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13 minutes ago, DonLever said:

Today is 50th anniversary of the moon landing of Apollo 11. 

 

So does anyone here remember that day besides me?   I bet 90% of the people on this forum were not even born when the event occurred.

 

It was a big news back in 1969 with daily TV coverage and news paper coverage.   The internet was decades away.

 

Back in Vancouver, on July 20, 1969,   I remember the day as extremely hot, it must have in the mid 80's.   Back in 1969, there were only a few TV channels available and only through the air as there were no cable back then in our neighbourhood.  Like most people back then we had a B/W TV, colour TV was very expensive and few people could afford them.

 

The coverage I saw was on Channel 12, then known as KVOS, based in Bellingham.   It was a CBS affiliate.  Now KVOS is a channel that shows old TV shows.

 

So what did I see through our B/W TV?   Not much I have to say.   The image on our TV was very blurry.   The moment Neil Armstrong stepped on the moment, we could not really see what was going on.  It looked like white and black blobs.   Not impressive at all.

 

Fast followed to 2019,  TV documentaries on right now show the events in sharp re-mastered digital detail.  What a difference.

 

Part of the problem was that the TV feed transmitted from the Moon was in slow-scan TV and had to be converted to NTSC television format.  The end result was that the Apollo 11 landings were transmitted to your TV at effectively 10 fps as opposed to the standard approximately 30 fps of NTSC and the live conversion was rather poor.  The rest of the Apollo missions transmitted in standard format and did not use the SSTV format.

 

The original SSTV was recorded on tapes and put away in storage.  It is these tapes that went missing.

Edited by thedestroyerofworlds
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Also one has to remember the size of TV cameras in the 60's. To make smaller cameras even black and white ones where every ounce matters, was an achievement in itself.

On Apollo 12 they were going to have colour TV on the broadcast. But one of the astronauts pointed the camera towards the unfiltered sun too long. It burnt out the phosphors and pretty much ruined the camera. 

 

It wasn't until Apollo 15, they built a tougher, sturdier camera.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_TV_camera

 

It's still a massive gamble and achivement. A testimony not only to the Astronauts, but to all the builders, designers, contractors, that said to themselves. This won't fail because of me. Despite this almost every mission had some type of glitch or issue. Be it the overload of the landing computer (operator error) in Apollo 11. Being hit by lightning in Apollo 12. The landing radar having issues on Apollo 14. The wiring and electrical failure that blew up the liquid oxygen tank in Apollo 13 that almost lost the crew. 

Even Skylab lost a solar wing and some of the shielding on the space station when it was deployed in orbit. The first crew to Skylab had to work to make the space station livable and have enough power to operate. 

 

I'm pretty sure had they continued the Saturn IB and V rockets, and kept upgrading them. It would have been far cheeper than the Shuttle turned out to be. 

The cost cutting, and making the Shuttle try and do more and more just messed up the program. 

 

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I heard somewhere that they faked it!! Anyone else hear that rumour?

 

I also heard that the aliens told them not to come back.

 

So I guess the "aliens told them not to come back" comment wasn't enough of a clue that I was joking. This leads me to conclude that some CDC posters are in fact reptilian aliens without the capacity to sense humour.

Edited by RWMc1
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While the TV broadcast was terrible, the film they brought back is of high quality as we see in the documentaries today.  Apparently they brought the best cameras available at that time including 70 mm film camera and 35 mm Hasselbachs.  The High Definition footage they are showing on CNN looks so sharp it could be filmed today.

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4 minutes ago, RWMc1 said:

I heard somewhere that they faked it!! Anyone else hear that rumour?

 

I also heard that the aliens told them not to come back.

If you lived back in the 1960's like I did, it seemed real enough.    The rumours did not start until years after the event.   If it was faked, the Soviet Union would be the first to say so considering they were bitter enemies of the US at that time.  Remember the Soviets had plenty of satellites up in space and they would be monitoring the event.

 

One of the reasons for the rumours was why was the US flag flying on the moon since it was airless there.  It turned out the astronauts used wires to hold up the flag so it would look good in pictures.

 

Also, this was the age before digital so it was pretty hard to create the footage brought back from the moon.

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1 hour ago, DonLever said:

If you lived back in the 1960's like I did, it seemed real enough.    The rumours did not start until years after the event.   If it was faked, the Soviet Union would be the first to say so considering they were bitter enemies of the US at that time.  Remember the Soviets had plenty of satellites up in space and they would be monitoring the event.

 

One of the reasons for the rumours was why was the US flag flying on the moon since it was airless there.  It turned out the astronauts used wires to hold up the flag so it would look good in pictures.

 

Also, this was the age before digital so it was pretty hard to create the footage brought back from the moon.

I listened to it on the radio. The adults were very serious and excited and I remember being told to stay quiet.

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7 minutes ago, Canuckster86 said:

technology has advanced so much in thse 50 years, why haven't they gone back to the moon...that is my question?

China just landed a rover on the moon didn't they? I do wonder this as well though - would be pretty sweet to see in 4k vs .04k like they did originally :P

Edited by MikeBossy
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