Wirt Atmar writes:

>I very much remember where I was at the time. I stayed up the night with some
>friends and co-workers from the entomology department where I worked at night

I remember the launch, but I particularly remember the landing. It was
Saturday night, and I had just turned 13. My parents, as was their
regular Saturday habit, left to go out to dinner at about 7PM. I was
incredulous that anyone would voluntarily miss the event. I still am.

>At the end of every millennium, there is always a great deal of reflection
>about what will be remember a thousand years from now. That first trip to the
>Moon will almost certainly rank among the very top few. All of the wars and
>all of the presidents and all of the kings will fade into a general blur, the
>mankind's first trip to the Moon in an amazingly rickety contraption will be
>remembered.

I think that from the perspective of a thousand years, it will be the
discovery of the first extrasolar planets that will seem the most
important. In fact, I'll go out even farther on a limb and say that many
people will presume that the discovery of extrasolar planets preceded the
first flight to the moon, and provided the impetus for making the trip.

>The engineered in-service, useful lifetime of Boeing's new 777 aircraft is
>specified at 70 years. That period of time is longer than the timespan from
>Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility. When travel to the Moon and the
>planets, and eventually the stars, becomes equally prosaic, the first trip to
>the Moon will be considered with even greater awe.

Even now, it's kind of hard to believe. The last couple of years, I've
taken my kids to the Space Museum in Alamogordo, NM, and to Cape
Canaveral. They have lots of the original equipment on display, and it's
shocking how primitive the technology seems. Huge "miniature" gyroscopes
for inertial guidance; computers four orders of magnitude larger and not
a thousanth as powerful as the one that got thrown away with last year's
Talking Barbie; quaint and clunky avionics... how did they do it?

I must say that I'm gratified by all the attention being given to the
anniversary, particularly since the 25th anniversary was also
well-covered. On July 20, 1993, I had very much the opposite experience.
I had stopped at a convenience store/gas station while we were out
house-hunting, and as I signed the credit card slip, I saw the date and
mentioned that it was the 24th anniversary of the moon landing. The
teenage clerk gave me a puzzled look. "It is? How do you know?" she asked.



-- Bruce


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