APOLLO 11. 50 year mark.

PA DETAILER

PA DETAILER

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Been watching a lot of special programming on the subject this month. I always had a interest in the subject.
 
I use to skip school anytime there was a launch, both parents worked so I could get in the house turn on the TV. I was always fascinated with anything space related.
 
I was 12 when they went to the moon and all these years later space is just what your imagination think it is
 
The space program, and especially Apollo, literally changed my life. I was almost 12 and remember staying up to watch the first moon walk on our old Curtis Mathes console TV. But the impact started before that. The DuPont plant in my hometown produced the aluminized Mylar and Kapton film (silver and gold films, respectively) that was used to insulate the outsides of the lunar modules, and our neighbor was an engineer at the DuPont plant. So for years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission, I had been hearing lots about the program, and our whole town was abuzz about it. All of that inspired me to be an engineer. Little did I know that years later, while attending the Univ. of Cincinnati for its co-op engineering program, I would get the chance to take a class taught by Neil Armstrong himself. He NEVER once mentioned anything about himself or his NASA missions, but he was a very cool prof ... for one class project, we made paper airplanes and he joined us in the old UC fieldhouse to fly them !
 
57Rambler said:
The space program, and especially Apollo, literally changed my life. I was almost 12 and remember staying up to watch the first moon walk on our old Curtis Mathes console TV. But the impact started before that. The DuPont plant in my hometown produced the aluminized Mylar and Kapton film (silver and gold films, respectively) that was used to insulate the outsides of the lunar modules, and our neighbor was an engineer at the DuPont plant. So for years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission, I had been hearing lots about the program, and our whole town was abuzz about it. All of that inspired me to be an engineer. Little did I know that years later, while attending the Univ. of Cincinnati for its co-op engineering program, I would get the chance to take a class taught by Neil Armstrong himself. He NEVER once mentioned anything about himself or his NASA missions, but he was a very cool prof ... for one class project, we made paper airplanes and he joined us in the old UC fieldhouse to fly them !
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Now this is cool!

I was not born until the year after the moon landing, but I have talked with a few guys who worked at the two Grummen plants here on Long Island that had a lot to do with the landing modules.

Fascinating stuff. I could sit and listen to them for as long as they felt like talking about it. Just an incredible achievement for the time.
 
I was in Navy boot camp in Orlando Fl however we got to watch it on TV in one of our training classes.
 
PaulMys said:
I was not born until the year after the moon landing, but I have talked with a few guys who worked at the two Grummen plants here on Long Island that had a lot to do with the landing modules.

Fascinating stuff. I could sit and listen to them for as long as they felt like talking about it. Just an incredible achievement for the time.
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One story I remember my neighbor telling about the lunar module's construction was that they would turn the things upside down after assembly to try and find loose fasteners, etc., that could cause castastrophic things like a short circuit.
 
57Rambler said:
One story I remember my neighbor telling about the lunar module's construction was that they would turn the things upside down after assembly to try and find loose fasteners, etc., that could cause castastrophic things like a short circuit.
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A guy that worked in the Calverton, LI plant told me that they bolted the prototypes to a gyroscopic machine that would simultaneously shake the hell out of it, and more violently than anything he had ever seen.
 
PaulMys said:
A guy that worked in the Calverton, LI plant told me that they bolted the prototypes to a gyroscopic machine that would simultaneously shake the hell out of it, and more violently than anything he had ever seen.
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That may have been the same "testing" my neighbor referred to. Pretty crazy considering the lunar module was actually fairly flimsy ... I read/heard somewhere that its mass was just under 5000kg, minus its fuel/propellants.
 
57Rambler said:
That may have been the same "testing" my neighbor referred to. Pretty crazy considering the lunar module was actually fairly flimsy ... I read/heard somewhere that its mass was just under 5000kg, minus its fuel/propellants.
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I wish those guys I talked to were still with us, but alas.... :(
 
Still amazed by it all.

Seeing a lot of the renewed videos/films (this past week or so) from that era really woke up that part of my addled brain that had forgotten how great it all was.

Bill
 
Just to add a car theme that was also influenced by the Apollo project...

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:)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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