Watch CBS News coverage of the Apollo 11 moon launch from 50 years ago today

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/16/watch-cbs-news-coverage-of-the.html

5 Likes

Excellent!

On a related note, by nephew is in the HS marching band, and their set this year is all lunar themed, including Bowie’s Space Oddity…

12 Likes

Just back from the cinema where we watched the Apollo 11 documentary out to celebrate. Stirring stuff!

We come in peace for all (humanity). Interesting to see how the world has changed, often for the better. And the primitive tech! Rooms full of hundreds of white men looking at single factor hard wired telemetry on printouts… When I saw the footage growing up I thought the displays looked complex.

What an amazing set of achievements it was. What a dream. What a will.

8 Likes

Wally Schirra’s face at 2:29:50 when he sees for the first time the tape of his own aborted launch.

1 Like

And that’s the way it was.

Ah, Cronkite. It was a different media world back then. Imagine how this event would be covered today – a braying clown like Richard Quest leading the CNN coverage, conspiracy theorists being included on 8-person cross-talking panels for “balance”. For all our advances since 1969 we seem to be taking more and more backwards steps (and not just small ones).

6 Likes

I remember reading a couple of years ago that a whole bunch of forgotten and never before seen moon landing film in the archives. So when I rented this a few weeks ago, I was utterly stunned by the quality of the footage.

1 Like

My mother sent me a text message this morning to inform me that I actually watched this broadcast when it aired live. I was 8 months old. And not sleeping.

8 Likes

They actualy used analog monitors on those consoles. They optically combined the data from a digital display and a physical background slide and used a video camera to shoot it so that the information could be displayed.
Edited to add:for more info see Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained | Ars Technica
and Going boldly: Behind the scenes at NASA’s hallowed Mission Control Center | Ars Technica

5 Likes

Nice!

They even kept commercials, such as the one @ 31:00 for the paper bikini…

Definitely a different time.

1 Like

French/German station “ARTE” is currently showing “Chasing the Moon” by Robert Stone (yes, I am old and I still watch linear TV). So far this looks like a really great documentary. The first episode shone some light on Ed Dwight, the second one on Poppy Northcutt, two people I had never heard of before.

It is probably geoblocked outside France and Germany, but maybe you are lucky and can watch it here:


1 Like

I used to get up at the crack of dawn to watch some launches. They were thrilling at the time. Probably be a bit boring now. Still, I got the bestest present evah when man first stepped on the moon on my 15th birthday. Of course, the whole moon walk was slightly marred when they accidentally pointed the one and only camera at the sun, frying it. Still…

1 Like

Apparently, Poppy Northcutt was also featured in National Geographics “Apollo: Missions to the Moon”, which I can’t watch due to geoblocking.

And she was also interviewed on Tested a few days ago:


Her view on the chances of future missions to the Moon and Mars are really interesting. At 27 minutes into the interview, she praises Lyndon B. Johnson for being the last President who knew how to handle Congress to actually finance the project. They mention it is no wonder that the main NASA facilities are located in Texas, Florida and Alabama. The politics involved in getting the money are also touched on in the Robert Stone documentary mentioned above.
4 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.