Were you alive when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?

Question

I wish I'd been alive back then, I would love to have seen that.I've read over the old newspapers from that date but that doesn't ammount to being there to see it obviously. Do you think man will land on Mars in our lifetime?

Answer 1

Yes I was there in 1969 when this all happened and ill tell ya it was the most exiting day of my life,, I watched the liftoff and the landing and the first moonwalk,, Those words meant so much not only to me but the entire world,, But ya know? after the third moon landing the people started losing interest in it and the rush was over,,
I feel fortunate to have seen such a feat,,

as for Mars, The last I read about the manned mission was to be in 2020, But thats subject to change at anytime,

Answer 2

yes, i was a child at the time and saw it live and so exciting!!! but now I've grown up I'm not so sure i did see them land on the moon? I'll tell you why, its not just all the conspiracy theories that's going round or the questions about shadows and why did the flag fly if there's no wind, ( THINK ABOUT IT) but if you can, get a copy of an old film called CAPRICORN ONE, usually there are more truths and facts in films than the government let us know. would be nice to know if you were a real person or just the good old USAF checking to see if we still fell for it. if you are a student with a still open mind check the moon for the same magnetic poles that protect earth from radiation from the sun that allows life to exist and calculate the life span of a human without that protection. is that not why Russia stopped? hope ive given you enough roads to go down, only ones true! good hunting, but get the film.

Answer 3

I was 14 years old and watched it on tv at something like 4am in the morning here in the UK with my Father... I still dont believe that it has happened as the conspiricy has far too much to offer. Would you send a three manned team to the moon and send two down to the moon surface in a craft that could not be controlled on Earth, if that crashed on the moon by falling over, how would the third man get home, answer, he would not be able to, so all three would have been doomed. Something happened, but it was not on the Moon... also if you count the cost of the finance the USA spent on the Apollo missions and the cost of the war in Vietnam plus the cost of the economy in the USA; The finances do not meet up as the Country would have had to borrow billions to prop up the economy... So we know thousands of people died because of war and we can't change that, but a film set of the moon and a few hundred people paid vast sums of money to keep quite now seems feisable to me. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Van Allen Radiation belt around the Earth, the Luner Modules "thin" skin would have let so much radiation through that the astronauts would have been nuked like being inside a microwave.

Answer 4

Yes i was, but although i can remember some things that happened in 1969, i don't remember the first one. As they say, if you can remember the 'sixties, you weren't there! I can remember the later Apollo missions to the Moon though, and not surprisingly Apollo 17 is the clearest memory. I was a small child.

This is what i do remember (i was 2 to 5 years old):

Because the TV pictures from the Moon were fuzzy and ghosty, i thought that astronauts turned into wisps of gas when they went into space. I wanted to have a spacesuit because they seemed like incredibly cool things to wear to me.

I was going to school in the middle of them and used to come home for lunch, watched the TV broadcasts avidly and was very excited, and found school very dull and an annoying thing to have to do when such an interesting thing was going on.

I looked up at the Moon with binoculars and was disappointed that i couldn't see people walking around.

I can remember James Burke presenting the programme about it.

I thought the lunar buggy would be a strong influence on the technology used by motor vehicles, and to a small extent i think it influenced the craze for buggies, i.e. open frame motorised cars, but not much else.

I can remember one of the astronauts tripping over something which plugged together and had trailing cables, and it was difficult for him to get up. This seemed to be a fairly big issue at the time.

I also remember the laser reflectors being left behind.

It was very exciting to me and lots of people were talking about it in an amazed sort of way. It was a very big influence on children especially. At the time, everyone expected people to go to Mars soon after, build permanent space stations like the wheel-shaped L5 type design and build a permanent base on the Moon. I am still very disappointed that none of this happened and i'm forty now. At the time, president Nixon announced detailed plans for a possible Mars mission from 1979 to 1981, some of which i still have records of.

I suppose it's all part of growing up, but part of me is very sad about how nothing else much has happened since. I am not at all impressed by the space shuttle and the ISS, because to be honest it's pretty pathetic compared to having a mile-wide space station permanently occupied in orbit, people on Mars and a Moon base. This could turn into a rant, so i'll restrain myself. However, clearly at the time people were able to accept a film (2001) which predicted a human mission to Jupiter by that time, which just shows you how much more optimistic and outward-looking people were in those days.

Yes, i do think it's possible people will go to Mars in my lifetime, but it's also possible, given the general obsession with health and safety and people generally being up their own ---ses, that some ridiculous legal reason will emerge for not doing it, like NASA being afraid of being sued by the descendents of the first people on Mars for damaging their genome. Personally, i think it's a risk worth taking for the sake of the whole human race.

Answer 5

I remember sitting in class watching him step off the lunar lander. Even at 9 years old, I knew that it was an Earth changing event. I still get goose bumps thinking about it.
Grainy picture, scratchy sounds, black and white TV. It all comes back so vividly.
Thanks for the memories.
.
As for Mars, I think that it will happen, as soon as they can sort out how to survive for a while on Mars, and take off again. Gravity is a bit higher than the moon, so they need heavier craft. They won't be able to shed as many layers as they did on the Moon landings, where they took of in a massive rocket (Saturn V) and came back in something the size of a car.

But here's hoping that it happens in my lifetime.
.

Answer 6

I was 7 years old. I remember it vividly. The earliest mission I remember in detail was Apollo 8, but as a 7 year old my view was that it must really suck to be away from home at Christmas.

Like many of my generation I was inspired by the space program and, yes, by Star Trek to follow a scientific/technical career.

Mars? There has to be a reason to go, and the political will to make it happen. I don't see either, sadly.

Answer 7

Yes, I was a boy of 7 and I did so many projects on it at school my Mum thought I would work for NASA when I grew up.

I'd like to see a Mars landing before I die, but I suspect that our automated probes are getting so good now it will never need to happen.

Answer 8

Yes I was alive at the time but I did not actually see it.
I only got to read about it in the same old newspapers that you have read. The 'live version' is still available on video tape, so you did not 'miss it' unless you died before the event.
Seems to me you have the time frame mixed up.

Answer 9

Oh yes. I was a British sailor standing on a hill in Bermuda with a bunch of very proud American tourists looking up at the moon as if we could see the event actually taking place-- I felt proud also.

Answer 10

Hi. Yes. I was working so I missed the landing but got home in time for the EVA. I'm not sure we are ready for Mars just yet. We need to clean up our room first!