DailyDirt: One Small Step For A Man...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Neil Armstrong's recent passing has reminded lots of folks about the first manned mission to the moon. The whole idea that "we could put a man on the moon" seemed incredible in the 1960's, and the feat is still remarkably difficult -- even if kids today can't fully appreciate the accomplishment. Maybe someday, we'll go back to the moon (and this XKCD will have to be adjusted), but in the meantime, here are just a few links about that historic first moonwalk. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
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Filed Under: apollo 11, exploration, moon, moonwalk, neil armstrong, nixon, space
Companies: nasa


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  1. icon
    Bennett (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:04pm

    One Small Step For Man Makes No Sense

    Thank goodness someone has finally pointed this out.

    "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", makes no sense at all, where as

    "One small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind", actually does make sense.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:14pm

    Re: One Small Step For Man Makes No Sense

    Which sounds more epic though?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:17pm

    >>In 2006, NASA realized that it had lost its original Apollo 11 moon landing videos, but fortunately, archived footage of the moonwalk was found in Australia in 2010.

    Thank heavens for copying.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    mudlock (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:18pm

    Re: Re: One Small Step For Man Makes No Sense

    Are you implying that nonsense may sound more epic?

    Because no. (Unless you're Lewis Carrol.)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:25pm

    Neil Armstrong was a very very taciturn, humble man and he was very difficult to approach. In a Discovery Channel Documentary about how humans left the Earth, he basically stated in a VERY rare interview that he stayed away from the public because he felt that it would have taken the torch away from the human achievement at whole.

    I might go take the wife this weekend to his burial site in Wapakoneta, Ohio.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:28pm

    Re:

    Australia carried the world-wide television boardcast through a radio telescope so I wouldn't be surprised if the was a source.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:30pm

    Re: Re: Re: One Small Step For Man Makes No Sense

    How could you get more epic than saying nonse in Lewis Carrol style? ;-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 5:39pm

    Thanks Mike :-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 6:06pm

    The moon landing was awesome. Some of the best special effects work Hollywood ever produced.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Wally (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 6:31pm

    Re:

    Man it didn't take long for this kind of taint to appear.

    There seems to be one thing conspiracy theorists forget about. Retro Retroreflectors. The US didn't have the technology to deploy them without human hands in 1969. They helped find the exact distance to the moon when NASA bounced a laser off of them.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 7:22pm

    Re: Re:

    And it's not the kind of taint we want to see.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 7:47pm

    I was performing some research into rocket launches and stuff, and it appears that a lot of this type of project management for this occurs across the parking lot from an IKEA located somewhere in Denver, that didn't exist about a few years ago.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 8:23pm

    "One giant step fof Manny Kind"

    It's the second line that was mis-heard... what Neil Armstrong actually said was "one giant step for Manny Kind."

    Manny was a friend of his whose wife always refused to give Manny a blow-job, saying to him - "They'll have to land a man on the moon before I'll do that!"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 28 Aug 2012 @ 9:09pm

    Armstrong Himself Wasn’t Quite Sure He’d Said It Right

    As I recall, someone did a waveform-level analysis of the audio, to confirm that there was a crackle just at the point where he would have said “a”, to confirm that Armstrong had in fact said what he intended to say. Until then, even he wasn’t sure.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2012 @ 9:37pm

    ...one gaint leap for america's bragging rights

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 28 Aug 2012 @ 9:55pm

    Re: Man it didn't take long for this kind of taint to appear.

    I have a recording of that “Did We Land On The Moon?” pseudo-doco somewhere. It’s very instructive to go through it step-by-step, and point out why every single one of its claims is nonsense.

    A good exercise in critical thinking for a budding science class, I would say.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    Andrew Hotta (profile), 28 Aug 2012 @ 11:28pm

    Re:DailyDirt: One Small Step For A Man...

    Neil Armstrong's has set the way to all the peoples to know about the Universe... May God keep his soul in peace...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. icon
    Wally (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 5:07am

    Re: Re: Man it didn't take long for this kind of taint to appear.

    My favorite moment afterwards is Buz Aldrin punching the idiot with a right hook square in th jaw.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    abc gum, 29 Aug 2012 @ 5:07am

    Re:

    Dude - I'd like to introduce you to Buzz Aldrin

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. icon
    Wally (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 5:09am

    Re:

    It was an international achievement to get the broadcast to everyone around the world.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. icon
    Wally (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 5:11am

    Re: Re:

    My uncle actually met him in person once. A bit of a braggart, but a nice person all around :-)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Gregg, 29 Aug 2012 @ 6:33am

    Why has no one, not even Russia, China, Europe or India ever gone back to the moon? 40 plus years?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. icon
    Wally (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 9:14am

    Re:

    There are some fascinating recently declassified documented missions from Russia involving they making a rover named Lunokhod 1.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. icon
    Wally (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 9:21am

    Re: Re:

    And just like Russian built AK-47....it still works today ^_^

    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/03jun_oldrover/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. icon
    Michael Ho (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 1:56pm

    Re:

    You're welcome, Wally. :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. icon
    Michael Ho (profile), 29 Aug 2012 @ 2:02pm

    Re:

    Gregg,

    Manned missions are incredibly risky and expensive... and productivity-wise, it's hard to beat robot missions for doing science. We could easily send a robot to the moon to accomplish any number of scientific tasks, so why send a human? It's been done before, and there isn't that much more to learn about it -- UNLESS we're going to try to start colonizing the moon.....

    So plans to start living on the moon semi-permanently might take some (more) decades to pull off....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  27. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2012 @ 2:02pm

    Re:

    Watch "Apollo 18". That will answer your question.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  28. icon
    Wally (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 2:14pm

    Re: Re:

    Don't know whether serious or joking. It was a movie made to look like it was shot on 16mm film. Still creepy as Hell though.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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