Moon Landing - 1969

42 years ago today and I still rember the thrill of watching it. It was a Sunday and the Monday papers in New York, even the normally staid New York Times, all ran the date line as Moonday, July 20th, 1969.

Space Race

Yesterday's final launch of the space shuttle reminded me of the first space launch with a manned capsule by the United States. It was in May of 1961, a mere 3 weeks after the Soviets had put their first man in space with Yuri Gagarin's flight. Both flights were breakthroughs. Literally.

The idea was to see if a man could ride a rocket, puncture the atmosphere, and then return to earth alive. This was really an intense moment for our nation as we tried to catch up to the Soviets in a race to put the first man on the moon. With the score at 1-0, in favor of the Soviets, this was a riveting event. With 2 explosions of Redstone rockets already behind us, no one knew just what would happen that morning when Alan B. Shepard took off for his 15 minute flight.

I was on a "split" session for 1st grade, meaning that the school was overcrowded, making it necessary to have a morning class, and then an afternoon one. I was lucky. I had the afternoon class, which meant that I got to watch the liftoff, as well as the subsequent recovery of the capsule at sea.

For the next 8 years we watched with bated breath as the rockets kept going up; bigger and better rockets, carrying bigger and better capsules. There was the first orbit by John Glenn in a single man Mercury capsule, followed by the 2 man Gemini program, which gave us the first "space walk", proving that a man could perform simple tasks in a weightless environment. Then came the 3 man Apollo program, our final stage in reaching the moon.

Who can ever forget that 1968 Christmas Eve orbit of the moon, with the reading of Genisis? And 7 months later, in July of 1969, we walked the surface of that planet. As I watched yesterday's lift off of the last shuttle I was filled with mixed feelings. I'm not sure what real benefits we actually derived from the space program. But I'm sure glad we did it.

The Heart Nebula

Explanation: Cosmic clouds seem to form fantastic shapes in the central regions of emission nebula IC 1805. Of course, the clouds are sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from massive hot stars in the nebula's newborn star cluster, Melotte 15.

About 1.5 million years young, the cluster stars are near the center in this colorful skyscape, along with dark dust clouds silhouetted against glowing atomic gas. A composite of narrow and broad band telescopic images, the view spans about 40 light-years and includes emission from hydrogen in green, sulfur in red, and oxygen in blue hues.
Wider field images reveal that IC 1805's simpler, overall outline suggests its popular name - The Heart Nebula. IC 1805 is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia.

I saw this photo on a web site about Nebulas. Reading the paragraphs above, I am left with more questions than answers. You can fit all that I know concerning Nebulas inside a small thimble and still have plenty of room to spare. But I do know that we are all very small in comparison to the "larger picture." And I find this knowledge to be very humbling.

There is nothing that I could post here today which would compare with this insight. But, maybe tomorrow....

"1969 - The Year Everything Changed" by Rob Kirkpatrick

This book is a chronological review of the year 1969. With so much having been written about 1968, sometimes 1969 gets lost in the shuffle. I have always considered 1969 to be the year that the "Woodstock Nation" died. The era of peace and love sort of ended at Altamont Speedway in California that December when the Rolling Stones hired the Hells Angels to be the "security" for the concert. A crowd of over 500,000 people allowed themselves to be intimidated by less than a couple of hundred bikers. The fact that someone was murdered in front of the stage, while the Rolling Stones kept playing, underscores the myriad of problems which plagued our society throughout the 60's and would spill over into the 70's. Some might say that the seeds for some of todays problems were planted back then.

The year itself was just as exciting as 1968, but in a different sort of way. While 1968 was a year of great hope, 1969 was a year when the "hippie" movement clearly became commercial. Capitilizing on the sexual revolution, "O! Calcutta" became the number 1 show on Broadway. "I Am Curious (Yellow)" was considered a landmark movie.

In California Charles Manson was able to use the mind expanding properties of LSD to control a band of followers, directing them to murder for the dubious purpose of inciting a race war. San Francisco was reeling under the threat of the "Zodiac" killer, while Lt. William Calley was charged for his role in the systematic killings of unarmed women and children in My Lai, Vietnam.

In politics, President Nixon was in office and beginning his slow descent to his place in history. Ted Kennedy was busy partying with his own campaign staff and made his famous "swim" against unbeatable currents, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die, trapped in his car at the bottom of Chappaquiddick. Although this would end his hopes of ever becoming President, it had no effect on his position as head of the Senate Ethics Committee, a post he would occupy for 41 more years, until his death in 2010.

In the midst of all of this there were some very positive things going on as well. Man landed on the Moon, and the first Boeing 747 "jumbo jet" took flight, enabling more people than ever before to travel at an affordable rate. Gays grew tired of being harassed for their sexual orientation and fought back against police in New York City's Greenwich Village, in what would become known as the "Stonewall Riots." This would be the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement.

The Arts and Music scene were active. The Who released the first so-called rock opera, "Tommy." Neil Young and Steve Stills left Buffalo Springfield to form their own bands. Neil Young formed Crazy Horse and Steve Stills founded Crosby, Stills and Nash, which Neil Young would later join.

In Sports, there was Joe Namath, quarterback for the New York Jets, losing his career because he owned a restaurant where alcohol was served. The New York Mets were on the way to their first World Series against the Baltimore Orioles, which they would win. (I think I went to Game 5, at Shea Stadium, with John DiStefano.)

The book is augmented by a time line showing the news events of the year. And it was a busy one. Reading this book makes you aware that 1969 was not only the turning point of a decade, but also a watershed year, both in who we were and what we have, as a society, become.

"We Seven" by The Mercury Astronauts

If you were over 5 or 6 years old in 1960 you will remember the first Mercury flights that presaged our landing on the Moon in 1969. Theses were 1 man capsules designed solely to test whether man could break through the atmosphere, orbit the earth, perform various mechanical jobs outside the capsule and return safely. These were all the same elements required to land on the Moon.

The Russians had already beat us with the first man in space by some 6 months. We were bound and determined to catch up and pass them in the “Space Race.” The ultimate goal was a manned landing on the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade.

7 men were deemed qualified to undertake the rigorous training that would be required to perform these initial missions. They would work closely with the engineers and scientists who would develop the capsules and the gear required for them.

I remember the first blast off from Cape Canaveral, later Kennedy Space Center, by Alan B. Shepard in April of 1961. I was in 1st grade and on split sessions. So I got to watch the event on TV before heading off to school in the afternoon. That first flight was 15 minutes up and back down, just enough time to punch through the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. There the capsule and Shepard were both retrieved by an aircraft carrier. It was all so dramatic and scary. It was the unknown. And we got to watch it live.

The charm of this book is the telling of the story by the 7 men who lived it. They worked together to perfect the mission they would be tasked to perform. The stories they relate here are both anecdotal and scientific in nature. One moment you are learning about spacecraft attitude adjustments and the next you are reading about weightlessness and its’ effects on the human nervous system.

Everything had to be designed specifically for the mission. This was new ground being broken and there were no real rules.

The book is written in such a way that each astronaut takes his turn writing about a particular subject. This gives the reader a good overview of the subject from 7 different perspectives. The book traces the story of the 7 men from the selection process and on through to each of their individual flights.

It’s hard to write a book about such a complex subject and still have it remain “readable.” And these guys do a great job of it. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton were 7 men whose extraordinary courage changed history. And now they have given us a superb, inside look at the work behind those achievements.