Question for older members: Did you watch Neil Armstrong first steps,

[Pawelk198604]

And what was you first thought

From what I know of my country, Poland was the only country in the Eastern bloc, which showed live landing and Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon.

My mother told me that the landing on the moon watching her sister and my aunt, because she television, apparently the whole family and neighbors gathered at my aunt's small apartment to watch the first landing on the moon.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Pawelk198604

[Nibb31]

I wasn't born yet, but I do have faint memories of watching the Apollo-Soyuz ASTP mission and the "Skylab is falling" scare.

[PakledHostage]

I don't remember the skylab scare but I do remember the whole school gathering in the school gymnasium to watch shuttle launches. Later, when they became more routine, we'd only get to watch if our teacher shared our interest in watching the launch and made the effort to bring a TV into the classroom. I also remember walking out of class to go watch the news in the school library when the Challenger accident happened. The teacher didn't protest. I just left.

[astropapi1]

I'm too young for any of these, but my dad saw the live lunar landing on TV.

He lived all of his childhood on the States before moving here to Colombia with his parents (They were missionaires [<--Whatever]) The whole family went to their house to see this, so they made a huge bowl of popcorn and watched as Neil guided the LEM to the surface. Then he went to the nearest window and stared at the moon for a couple of minutes. Speechless.

That's what you call a magic moment in your life. Hope I'll live long enough to have my own.

[softweir]

I got to watch Neil Armstrong's first steps, live, at the age of seven! Of course I hardly understood all the implications, but I knew how important and amazing it was even if the whys and wherefores were beyond me.

One of my most treasured memories.

[Voidryder]

While I am usually very private about putting my personal life out on the Internet, this thread's topic caught my eye so here's go...

I have been fortunate enough to have been alive since the beginning of the Space Age, having been born right before Sputnik. I am one old Space Junkie. I remember my grade school teachers wheeling tv sets (no cable tv or internet streaming then) into our classrooms so we could watch live broadcasts of launches. Fell in love with the Gemini spacecraft as that big Titan roared off the pad.

I remember the excitement of Space exploration that gripped the US and the World back then. Yeah, eco-politics was a driving force, but for the average kid it was better than Buck Rogers. It was real. Laying in your backyard staring up at the Stars and knowing that Gus, John, Pete or Gordo was somewhere overhead flying a spacecraft was quite awe inspiring, filling me with a incredible sense of wonder and hunger to know more than what I could see, touch here on Earth. It also made me love Terra even deeper. She is our common spacecraft.

And it wasn't just the US space program. I wish we had known about the Soviet Space program back then like we do now. What an incredible list of accomplishments and we in the Western public didn't even know these heroes.

I remember Neil's and Dave's wild Gemini ride and the fear we were about to lose two brave souls. And I cried shamelessly when Gus, Ed and Roger died so senselessly. Still tear up, as I do for Challenger and Columbia.

So when Neil and Buzz landed then stepped upon the surface of another world that I could see details on with the naked eye, I was overcome with joy and awe. It wasn't about beating the Russians. It was Jules Verne, Arthur Clarke, Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein coming true. It was Hope and Dreams being possible if you just believed.

Once Neil and Buzz were back inside the LM, I stood in my front yard and watched the moon for hours. I could see the Sea of Tranquility. We were there. It was and still is a defining moment in my life.

I hope that each and everyone of us gets to see a human stand on Luna, Mars and beyond. I hope that the Chinese Space Program, SpaceX, ESA and all the others inspires new dreams and beliefs. I hope that Humanity continues to reach for the Stars. And I hope we all get to ride the booster as long as possible.

Voidryder

[Tex_NL]

Apollo was before my time. But I can clearly remember the live broadcast of the first shuttle launch in '81

Watching in the backyard with the entire family I was the first one to spot the Challenger when it passed over head in '85 carrying the first Dutch astronaut.

[Capt'n Skunky]

I was only 5 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but you can bet I saw EVERY space mission since my father worked at NASA. I have many memories all blended together from that age but I do remember the special occasion that was the Moon landing.

Cheers!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Pawelk198604]

I once watched an interview with the old journalists, our Polish public television. Apparently, the head of the Polish Television, btw dedicated communist, in the 60's decided that TVP will broadcast the Apollo 11 landing despite the strong objections of our beloved neighbor, the Soviet Union.

The guy then he lost his job, is still working on TV but not as a director.

Apparently he said that landing on the moon is too great events in human history to not be broadcast, and that he will not deprive Polish viewers of the event, because Soviets inferiority complex. Making Poland only Eastern Block that made live broadcast of Apollo 11.

[Eric S]

I was too young to remember it, but I was evidently quite aware of it, since one of my mother's favorite stories to tell of my childhood was me telling her to write NASA a nasty letter for not inviting me along.

[ShachonianX]

I never saw it, but my dad did.

[rdfox]

Born in 1976, so too young to have seen any of the Apollo missions, but I do recall back in early 1981 having, for weeks before STS-1, awakened my parents by flying out of bed at about six in the morning screaming, "TODAY'S THE DAY!" at the top of my lungs, only to have to be reminded that no, it's not for another two weeks...

Made STS-135 bittersweet for me; I grew up with the Shuttle and, while I had grown to be a big critic of the decisions that led to it, it was still the only manned space program I'd ever known as anything but photographs and films and artifacts in museums. The launch wasn't that hard--particularly since it was the first time I'd been present for the launch of anything bigger than an Estes "Big Bertha"--but I had a long, quiet period watching the post-landing safing and shutdown procedures for Atlantis on that flight, with the tears coming as I knew that was it...

[John Nowak]

I remember watching Apollo 11 on a a black and white TV. It was a very emotional, very exciting thing.

One of my memories of the time was that NASA and news companies would show special effects images of what was happening because, of course, there wasn't a camera ship following along. Each of those was clearly labelled in block letters: SIMULATION. Shame that little custom wasn't kept up.

[rdfox]

Heh, I know that NASA still shows computer-generated simulations of what's happening with every flight once out of visual range. (Witness the Curiosity landing, or any unmanned launch that doesn't carry a rocket-mounted camera.)

Also, my dad has a story about watching Apollo 11... at the time, he was in the Army, stationed in Berlin at a listening post. While he was home for the landing and EVA and was able to watch live on his TV on AFN, he was stuck on duty for the launch and didn't think he'd get to see it.

Until one of the tech guys called everyone over into a room where they kept test equipment for the radio receivers. Where he and several others had taken an oscilloscope and spare FM and shortwave receivers, and used them to create a jury-rigged television that could pick up the AFN broadcast of the launch. So he got to watch the Apollo 11 launch live, too, seeing a three-inch-tall green Saturn V riding a green trail of flame into a green sky.

AFTER they'd successfully reached orbit, there was a throat-clearing from the door, where the duty officer was standing, having watched the whole launch himself, and was now suggesting that the interesting part was over and it was time to get back to work. (IIRC, the tech guys were able to avoid a reprimand for misuse of government equipment, partly because they de-jury rigged the components back to regular use after the mission was over, and partly because the duty officers wanted to see the live coverage, too. Presumably, the landing and EVA, and the re-entry and splashdown, were also shown on that jury-rigged set for those on duty during them, too...)