How many people alive today remember the first moon landing in 1969?

Question

Or... what percentage of people alive today remember the first moon landing?

I've been searching the web for this info for over an hour. Any ideas? I've been to CIA's fact book, Census. Help!

I'm writing a story about NASA's Orion project. I want to say that __% of people today were not yet born or too young to remember the first landing on the moon.
Ideas anyone?

Answer 1

First you would have to narrow down the term "people." All people in the entire world? OK. Then you'd need to figure out how many people alive today were old enough to have seen it or heard about it--say, maybe the cutoff age could be five or something, so how many people alive today were born in 1964 or earlier? Then you'd need to figure out how many of those people had any access to any kind of technology--pygmies would not recall it because they never saw or heard of it. Then you'd have to figure out a way to account for all the people who meet all of those qualifications but who have an impairment, such as Alzheimer's, that might prevent them from remembering. Whew. Then you could take the total number of people left and divide it by the total of people in the world today, and...are you still with me? and then maybe you'd have a very rough approximation of the percentage of people alive today in the world who remember that event.

I sure remember it--they preempted Dark Shadows to show it on TV, and boy was I upset about it.

Answer 2

Since the first moon landing happened in 1969, nobody younger than 37 was even born. So that eliminates all the really young whippersnappers.

I assume that you'd have to be, oh, about 8-10 years old to really remember a significant event like that, so back it off another couple of years so that, in effect, nobody born after, oh, roughly 1962 would really remember the moon landings. So, we can eliminate anybody younger than 45.

On the other end of the age scale, it's been 37 years since the first landing, so if we assume (and I know it's a weak assumption, but let's go with it) that there aren't any folks older than 100 who can still recall the landings, that means that our window is only people between 45 - 100 years old today.

So, now you can go to sites like the Census, or insurance actuarial tables, and determine what percentage of the population is between those ages.

P.S. -- I was at Boy Scout camp in NJ when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. It was a big event! they brought in a TV and set it up at one end of the dining hall, and we all crowded in to watch. When Armstrong set foot on the moon, the dining hall was absolutely silent! Way cool. We heard his famous first words, and the entire place broke out in a tremendous cheer.

Answer 3

I'm 52 now and remember it well. I suppose that anyone born after 1962 or 1963 is going to be to young too have any clear memories of it. It was an awesme time. I grew up in the Houston area. There was something in the news every day about the space program. We ate, breathed, and dreamed about it.

Answer 4

I remember going there when I was around five years old.So, that was around 1963-64.Long before the Apollo missions.I vaguely remember watching it at school.I would much rather remember my own mission there instead.I also went to an underwater base on Earth as well. Funny the things you can remember that were suppressed so many years ago.Too bad I don't have a photo album or home video's.

Answer 5

It was in July 1969. I was at an applied maths lecture in Christchurch NZ. Several students were listening to the lecturer with one ear and a portable radio with the other. The lecturer said "That's OK. It's a triumph for applied maths." At about 3 pm New Zealand time, somebody turned their radio up and we heard Neil Armstrong's famous words. Awesome.

Answer 6

I remember that '69 was an exciting year. Woodstock, the moon landing and Mickey Mantle's fair well speech at Yankee Stadium and all of the anti-war rallies - unfortunately, I missed all of the excitement - I was busy in Danang, South Viet Nam at the time.

Answer 7

I do. Nine years old. Black and white TV. Awesome awesome experience. We would have school assemblies and they would let us watch all the returns to earth/splashdowns on TV too. Your generation doesn't even realize the magnitude of what you missed. The Apollo 11 space capsule ran on computer power equivalent to todays digital watches.

Answer 8

I had just finished my junior year in college majoring in astronomy, and watched it with my friend's family in Hermosa Beach, California. His father was one of the engineers who designed the instrument panel, and he was able to convince NASA that the holes that were eaten in the panel by leaving it in an acid bath for too long would not affect its performance.

It was the proudest moment since World War II ended, and over the entire world America was admired more than it has ever been since (and now we are hated more than ever before in history, thanks to Bush and the neocons - good job, little boys, but you mommies are calling you home now, hopefully to wash out your mouths with polonium for telling all those lies).

Answer 9

I remember watching it on a black and white TV while living in Seville, Spain. I was 13 years old.

Answer 10

I'd say the percentage of people over 40. You'll have to look that one up.