Explanation: Bright sunlight glints and long dark shadows mark this image of the lunar surface. It was taken July 20, 1969 by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the Moon. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin unfurling a long sheet of foil also known as the Solar Wind Composition Experiment. Exposed facing the Sun, the foil trapped particles streaming outward in the solar wind, catching a sample of material from the Sun itself. Along with moon rocks and lunar soil samples, the solar wind collector was returned for analysis in earthbound laboratories.
I remember watching the Moon landing on TV. I didn't see much, because the black and white image on the TV screen just kept shifting this way and that. But in the evening I went outside and looked at the Moon. It looked the same, and yet it didn't.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Ahh, Buzz Aldrin! The second man on the Moon. Here in Sweden, they kept reminding themselves that Buzz Aldrin was really a Swede! At least one of his ancestors was a Swede!
So, for those of you who could care less, here's a list of notable Swedish Americans. I note that George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are of Swedish descent , but so was Ray Bradbury.
And Buzz Aldrin, of course.
Ann
Last edited by Ann on Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm curious about the dragging marks, from bottom-center up to the right, along with the sideways footsteps accompanying the marks. I'm guessing something like dragging a sample bag, but I'd love to know for sure.
I imagine there's a log somewhere detailing the astronauts' tasks for that day. It would say what they were doing that would cause those marks. Anyone know if such a log is available online?
I had barely turned 15. The family - mom, dad, two young sisters and myself - were in front of the TV.
Sitting next to me was my beloved visiting grandmother. She was born in 1896 and grew up in South Philly. It dawned on me how much this woman had seen and experienced in her life. And I said "Grandmom, this must be really something for you to see."
She replied "I remember as a little girl we would all be clamoring on the front sidewalk for the ice man on those hot summer mornings. And we felt so modern, having the ice box to keep food cold on hot days. It was like magic. We used to look up at the Man in the Moon, and here I am now, looking at men walking on the moon..."
rstevenson wrote:I'm curious about the dragging marks, from bottom-center up to the right, along with the sideways footsteps accompanying the marks.
Those are the marks left behind from dragging the body of one of the camera operators off the sound stage when he threatened to go public.
(I'm not sure how detailed any logs were. The mission Flight Plan has all their activities planned to the minute. Page 3-80 has the moment of this image itemized: Aldrin: "DEPLOY SWC IN SUN"; Armstrong: "PHOTOGRAPH SWC". Before that was nothing for Aldrin except exiting the LM and practicing walking. Armstrong exited the LM, collected and stowed some samples (that might be the source of the drag marks), photographed Aldrin's egress, and deployed some TV equipment. So this image was very early in the EVA activities.)
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Along the dragmark, there is a cable or a wire running from the module, slightly elevated from the ground, casting a shadow at places and endingending in a look. Wonder what that is!
Tekija wrote:Along the dragmark, there is a cable or a wire running from the module, slightly elevated from the ground, casting a shadow at places and endingending in a look. Wonder what that is!
Tekija wrote:Along the dragmark, there is a cable or a wire running from the module, slightly elevated from the ground, casting a shadow at places and endingending in a look. Wonder what that is!
It's almost certainly the cable between the TV camera Armstrong deployed and the transmitter in the LM. (It doesn't end; the cable goes out of view at the bottom of the image.)
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Tekija wrote:Along the dragmark, there is a cable or a wire running from the module, slightly elevated from the ground, casting a shadow at places and endingending in a look. Wonder what that is!
It's almost certainly the cable between the TV camera Armstrong deployed and the transmitter in the LM. (It doesn't end; the cable goes out of view at the bottom of the image.)
Thought so. Then the "dragmark" is actually the trail of the cable swinging sideways with camera movements.
i was 9 and for the first time ever i was allowed to stay up late to watch the event. even at 9, i new it was a very special day. would it not be nice if our history was only composed of achievements and nice doings rather than barbaric terrorism and destruction.
Guest wrote:
i was 9 and for the first time ever i was allowed to stay up late to watch the event. even at 9, i new it was a very special day. would it not be nice if our history was only composed of achievements and nice doings rather than barbaric terrorism and destruction.
Our history is mostly composed of achievements and nice doings;
barbaric terrorism and destruction just gets more press time.
Tekija wrote:Along the dragmark, there is a cable or a wire running from the module, slightly elevated from the ground, casting a shadow at places and endingending in a look. Wonder what that is!
It's almost certainly the cable between the TV camera Armstrong deployed and the transmitter in the LM. (It doesn't end; the cable goes out of view at the bottom of the image.)
The cable dimensions seem to correspond with those used for the TV cameras.
I was thinking as I look at this scene, you suppose this will be an historical shrine. In 50 years or a hundred years when people colonize the Moon, the authorities will have to put up a museum rope or fence around the perimeter to keep Moon tourists from walking on this sacred ground. I wonder where they will set it up? A hundred yards out? 150 yards? I imagine it would be around where the two large rocks are in the distance in front of Armstrong. What we see here will last millions of years, because there is no weathering on the Moon. Those footprints, the lower half of the Lunar Lander, the drag marks and the wire cable (minus the astronaut and his shadow) will look the same 100 million years from now, nay a billion years from now! The Pyramids at Giza will have crumpled into dust, mankind's cities will have crumbled away, yet this evidence of the presence of human beings will outlast everything else. These footprints, that drag mark and cable, will say to visiting aliens a billion years from now - Human kind was here!
De58te wrote:I was thinking as I look at this scene, you suppose this will be an historical shrine. In 50 years or a hundred years when people colonize the Moon, the authorities will have to put up a museum rope or fence around the perimeter to keep Moon tourists from walking on this sacred ground.
Proposals have already been made. There was a bill a few years ago for the National Park Service to take control of the artifacts (it's against international law to control any of the lunar surface itself). There has also been recent talk around making it an international heritage site. With private interests getting involved in space travel, there's concern someone will launch a salvage mission and sell off what they bring back.
What we see here will last millions of years, because there is no weathering on the Moon. Those footprints, the lower half of the Lunar Lander, the drag marks and the wire cable (minus the astronaut and his shadow) will look the same 100 million years from now, nay a billion years from now!
There is erosion on the Moon. The surface goes through daily extreme temperature cycles, bombardment by solar wind, and by micrometeorites (assuming one big meteoroid doesn't just crater Tranquility Base!) It is estimated that the lunar surface is renewed every few million years; the lifetime of the footprints is probably on the order of a million years.
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
De58te wrote: The Pyramids at Giza will have crumpled into dust, mankind's cities will have crumbled away, yet this evidence of the presence of human beings will outlast everything else. These footprints, that drag mark and cable, will say to visiting aliens a billion years from now - Human kind was here!
I really like your way of putting that, even if it might not be strictly true according to Chris.
But to a spacefaring race of aliens, it can't be too impressive to think that humanity made it to the Moon. When I put together my own model of the inner Solar system, using a round table cloth to represent the Sun, small cotton balls to represent Venus, the Earth and Mars, and little yellow peas to represent Mercury and the Moon, three things struck me:
1) How breathtakingly huge even the inner Solar System is.
2) How unbelievably, incredibly, impossibly small the terrestrial planets are compared with the sizes of their orbits, and how terribly far the inner planets are from one another.
3) How ridiculously near the Moon is to the Earth.
So a spacefaring race that has made it all the way to the Earth from another solar system isn't likely to be bowled over by the fact that humanity made the tiny hop from their home planet to their satellite Moon.
But perhaps, if our current civilization is destroyed somehow, and the current age and its technology is completely forgotten, and humanity manage to slowly regain its technological and spacefaring ability so that they can return to the Moon, perhaps many millennia after Apollo 11... Think of their surprise if they were to find footprints on the Moon, when they thought they were the first visitors there.
Of course, finding this on the Moon would be even more impressive:
Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun
, but so was Ray Bradbury.
