Of the three crew members who went on Apollo 11, two are still alive. Obviously, they are in their 80s.
Michael Collins still makes appearances and he has a witty turn of phrase. His book is a good read, if you can find a copy.
Buzz Aldrin (Edwin E Aldrin Jnr) has had an eventful life. There are people who say he still bears a grudge at not being the first to walk on the Moon. Armstrong is remembered and the rest forgotten. I don’t know if it is true.
He has appeared on tv doing breakfast food adverts:
Apollo 11 took off on July 16, 1969. The journey was a few times around the Earth, a quarter of a million miles to the Moon, landing and then back.
Most of the mission had been done before, just not the landing on the Moon, exploration and take off from the surface bit. There was no guarantee that any part of it would not have a failure. It’s hard to understand just how brave those three astronauts in particular were.
If you have ever seen any real spacecraft close up, it’s pretty alarming. There is no assembly line for this. It’s hand-built. You can see the rivets, the bent bits of metal, the whole craft looks crude and a little home made. It isn’t, of course, but that’s the impression when you see one close up.
The Saturn V rocket is huge. I believe it is the most powerful machine ever built by man.
As we know from shuttle accidents, it only takes one small rubber ring to fail and there’s potential for disaster.
And we always assume that computers did everything. Well, they did have computer control for sure, but much less power than the average cell phone today.
So, during the flight they had problems. In fact, on the launchpad they had problems, but nothing they couldn’t deal with, and they landed on the Moon in prime time, July 21 1969.
In the UK it was the middle of the night. Even though it was the most historic achievement by man ever, the greatest adventure and true history, I was sent to bed and missed it.
Since we are thinking bout the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, it’s worth reminding ourselves of some of the other major things that happened that year.
1969 was the year that The Beatles released their last studio album, Abbey Road. Again, the cover has become an icon for the times. I don’t live that far away from the actual recording studios, and indeed have been inside. If you visit, there are hoardes of (usually foreign) visitors having their pictures taken.
There is to be a big Abbey Road box set, in the style of previous Beatle efforts, sometime later this year. The album is much loved, partly for the lack of Lennon sneery songs and partly because it was recorded by George Mrtin and the group in a relatively happy atmosphere. I am sure they all realised their days were numbered.
John married Yoko and they did bed ins (beds in?) for peace. And Brian Jones of the Stones died.
Also that year, the music festival Woodstock took place in New York. I watched the film of it just recently. There are some familiar names on the list of performers, like Hendrix, the Who, Janis Joplin and also acts long forgotten, like Quill and Bert Sommar. The four days of peace and love became something of a free-for-all, and rain made it very muddy. There was a good deal of anti-Vietnam war protesting, as you might expect. The film is great, especially on the big screen.
1969 was the year when the first steps towards an Internet were laid, with ARPANET beginning.
Led Zeppelin released their first album. So did King Crimson, still on the go and doing a 50th anniversary tour. The old stuff still sounds fresh and interesting.
Nixon was president that year. A complicated character, for sure. Concorde was being tested, and Scooby-Doo began on tv as did Monty Python.
Top films included The Italian Job (Michael Caine), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Midnight Cowboy. Al Pacino made his frst film and Elvis his last.
