ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Here's something you can watch on this historic day, July 20th.

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_____ CBS Coverage of Apollo 11 Lunar Landing


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Apollo 11: As It Happened (Complete 6-hour Program)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

To those of us brought up with the dreams of "Space Patrol" and "Tom Corbett" this was a dream come true.

I remember staying up all night glued to the tv in awe of this achievement! I was at my brother-in-laws house and spent the morning after at the bottom of his pool with a scuba tank dreaming of the future we had before us!

Little did I know that, to most of the country, that dream was to be fore-shortened.

Hopefully we can drive the dream of Mars and beyond to our children.

[Bud Brewster]

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It's 10:20 am EST and I'm watching that 2nd video above, the 6-hour program, and it's bringing all the excitement back for me.

One unfortunate thing I've realized is that our historians have done a piss-poor job of preserving the records of this momentous event. Their might be better videos of this news coverage (these YouTube videos are as clear as they should be), but the NASA tapes of the astroanuts on the Moon were deliberately erased.

Here's what Wikipeida says:
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The Apollo 11 missing tapes were recorded from Apollo 11's slow-scan television (SSTV) telecast in its raw format on telemetry data tape during the time of the first Moon landing in 1969.

A team of retired NASA employees and contractors tried to locate the tapes in the early 2000s but was unable to do so.

If the original slow-scan television (SSTV) format tapes were to be found, more modern digital technology could make a higher-quality conversion, yielding better images than those originally seen.

The researchers discovered that the tapes containing the raw unprocessed Apollo 11 SSTV signal were erased and reused by NASA in the early 1980s. It is claimed this was according to NASA's procedures because they were facing a major data tape shortage at that time.

If the one-inch data tapes, with the raw unprocessed Apollo 11 SSTV signals on them, were to be found, modern digital technology would allow for significantly better conversion and processing.
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Wikipedia also offers these pictures as a comparison between the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion (on the left) and the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion (on the right).





Bummer, huh?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Brent Gair]

I went on a cleaning binge recently and, believe it or not, I've thrown out SIX old TV sets in the last month. I'd been hoarding them because I didn't have an easy way to dispose of them. Fortunately, an electronics recycling depot opened nearby.

I saved one TV. It's unarguably the most worthless TV in the house. It's an old, portable Silvertone B&W with a broken handle. It's not worth the money to throw it away....somebody would likely take it off my hands if I gave them $10.00. But it's the TV we watched when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I'm not throwing it out. And, when I die, some distant relative will be going through my belongings and say, "Why in the world would crazy old uncle Brent, keep this piece of junk?"

The preservation or lack thereof of the original video is terrible. One of the better alternatives is the Blu-ray of FOR ALL MANKIND. It's sort of compilation of video and film from a number of moon missions to create one representative journey encompassing the best of the program.

"I like what Criterion have done here. The transfer reveals solid detail, excellent color reproduction and strong clarity (when compared to the SDVD transfer). More importantly, when blown through a digital projector, For All Mankind remains pleasingly stable. Furthermore, the Blu-ray transfer has enhanced the grain structure of the film quite nicely. As a result, the footage from the Moon looks absolutely fantastic. This being said, this is a newly restored, supervised and approved by the director, high-definition transfer of the film, which was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm interpositive. All in all, I doubt if For All Mankind looked this good when it was first screened."

[Bud Brewster]

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Watching the newsmen and the commentators and the science advisors on the Apollo 11 videos today, I heard several short-sighted people frequently ask the question, "Should we be going to the Moon?" And several far-sighted people answered the question wisely.

The gist of the message from those who answered well was contained in Bill Moyer's statement during a four-man discussion, when he was asked by Howard K. Smith this question.
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"You were in a high place in government at a time when this program was launched. Do you think that it's been a wasted effort — that the money has been a perversion of resources and skills?"

And Bill Moyer nailed it with this answer.

"No, I don't, and for this reason. We were not doing very much in the social and domestic field in the late 1950s when were not searching for the Moon or reaching into space. We have done more on Earth ever since we have been doing more in space, than we ever did a decade before."
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His point, of course, was that there are certainly no indications that the money spent on the space program had diminished our society's efforts to improve the lives and well-being of the American people.

And a portion of Kennedy's 1962 speech includes phrases which I think indicate the most important reason for the space program in general and the Apollo program in particular. Read this carefully.
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We choose to go to the moon in this decade . . . because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills . . . that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win . . .
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What Kennedy meant was that this ambitious goal will have a profound effect on the nation.

This goal will excite the American people and motivate our efforts to achieve it. It will fuel our determination, causing the American people to approve the use of their tax dollars to fund the industries needed to provide the required research and development.

Our work force will be increased by the new jobs this will create, our economy will be stimulated by the ripple effect of all this national commerce, and (perhaps best of all) our young people will be inspired to seek the kinds of high-tech jobs it takes to make our goals in space a success.

In short, the space program had the same galvanizing effect on the nation that World War II did — but without killing several million people. And President Kennedy knew this well, because his speech includes this next phrase immediately after the one I quoted above.
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It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
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Think what you will about President John F. Kennedy, but I believe he understood how important the space program was for the morale of the nation. To me, this reason certainly trumps the rather trivial political "bragging rights" it gave the United States, and it even trumps the scientific knowledge we gained.

In fact, the scientific advancements were the direct result of all the fevered activity the space program produced. Some folks might say that monetary gain is the most powerful motivator for technological advancement. But I don't think so. Money provides the basic necessities and the personal pleasures we enjoy.

But the need to fulfill a powerful dream can drive people to become obsessed with the desire to conquer the obstacles in their path. And you can't buy that kind of dedication and determination.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Brent Gair]

I agree completely with your post, Bud.

Kennedy was very much a "big picture" guy.

The concept of choosing to do things BECAUSE they are hard is lost on people today. And it's too easy to blame politicians....politicos are just reacting to an increasingly entitled public who thinks government exists to grease the wheels of their easy existence.

These days, a "challenge" is seen as an unfortunate circumstance which interferes with our comfortable life. 50 years ago, a challenge was something we would willingly take-on as a chance to better ourselves.

50 years ago: "We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard".

2016: "What's in it for me?"

[Bud Brewster]

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I'm downloading For All Mankind from Vidzi.tv right now just so I can watch it on this special day. Hopefully it will impress me as much as your description has. If so, I'll order it from Amazon . . . and watch in next July 20th.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Here's the big difference between our society during Apollo 11 and our society today.
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1969

"We sent men to the Moon! It's a magnificent achievement!"


2016

"Nobody went to the Moon. It's a big hoax."
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On a side note, I debated with a friend once about whether or not Neil Armstrong's famous first words had been grammatically correct when he uttered them. What we've all heard him say for decades has been —

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

— and of course the "man" in that statement is Neil himself, so it should have been "a man".

But did he leave out that letter by mistake, or . . . did he speak normally as we all do and simply not over-enunciate the "a man"? After all, in many cases, "a" is blended with the word after it. Just like we don't say THEE when we say the word "the" — we often pronounce it "thuh".

Nobody says "THEE Day THEE Earth Stood Still", right? We run those "the's" right into the word after them and say, "Tha-Day tha-Earth Stood Still".

Say this sentence out loud in a normal manner. That's important. Just speak like you usually do.

"A man told a girl about a thing he saw."

I'll bet what you said just now sounded like "Uh-man told uh-girl about uh-thing he saw."

So, what Neil said, in a normal manner, was "One small step for uh-man . . . on giant leap for mankind."

And there's also this to consider: Armstrong spoke to us on his suit radio, boosted by the LEM radio, from a distance of 240,000 miles. The sound quality wasn't exactly high fidelity, right? So, if that pesky little "a" actually was spoken by Neil, it should be no surprise that it got lost because of the sound quality.

More interesting still is the fact that astronauts use microphones that use a Voice Operated Switch — or VOX, as we hear them called it Apollo 13 — and those things are notorious for cutting off the first letter of the first word which is spoken after any pause long enough to cause the mic to shut off until the sound of the astronaut's voice reactivates it.

In fact, sometimes they'll cut in-and-out while the astronauts are speaking!

For example, Michael Collins did a short TV transmission on the return trip, a little zero-G demo about how gyroscopes work. But NASA interrupted him to request that he check his VOX, because the mic was causing numerous gaps in his message.

That said, it's entirely possible that the missing "a" was lost during a very quick VOX drop out.

And in fact, one letter actually IS lost by the voice-activated mic! Listen closely to Armstrong in this short Youtube video, in which we hear Neil say —

"One small step for man (long pause) . . . one (short pause) — iant leap for mankind."

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Wait a minute, what the hell is an "iant leap"?

Now, I'm sure nobody thinks Neil Armstrong said this was an "iant leap for mankind". So, for 47 years everybody has been perfectly willing to grant Neil that unheard "g". But they won't just accept that the unheard "a" was there too.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Remember my signature line:

Common Sense Isn't Common

It certainly applies here.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Brent Gair]

[Bud Brewster]

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Well, first of all, the quote he intended to say obviously had the "a" in it — according to Neil himself.

Second of all, we can't prove he didn't say it, for all the inarguable reasons I described above. We should have simply taken his word for it in 1969 the minute he got back from the Moon and said, "Wait, you quoted me wrong. An 'a' goes there . . . obviously."

And third, (perhaps the most important reason) is that the meaning of those stirring words is more important than anybody's stubborn insistence on what they thought he said from 240,000 miles away.

So, the history books and the public should just grant him the dignity of having said what he wanted to be remembered for.

By the way, Brent, thanks for the great recommendation. I watched the nice download of For All Mankind and I loved it! The amazing music is just one of the ways it excels. (I also remember that I'd seen it before and loved it then, too.)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)