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“Want to go for walk!”
Lily was waiting by the door when I came back from a very brief sortie of my own.
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A quick inspection of the evening sky.
And the waxing Moon.
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In just under two weeks (20th July), it will be 56 years since the Moon landing of Apollo 11. I had just joined BOAC and the event was televised on a large screen in the International Arrivals Building at JFK.
Nowadays, some believe it never happened, that it was all staged. I certainly didn’t think so at the time but this age of “fake news” makes you second guess almost everything you once accepted as real or true.
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It never occurred to me that the Moon landings might not be real. I remembered all too well the November 3rd, 1957 launching into space of Laika aboard Sputnik 2.
It still breaks my heart.
The point is, over the next 12 years, the space program was constantly in the news and it seemed perfectly probable that men could set foot on the Moon.
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After that first landing in July of 1969, I don’t recall hearing much about the other five, though of course I remember the drama of Apollo 13 which had people riveted to the news until we knew the men had returned safely to Earth.
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Space exploration was something I grew up very much aware of with radio programs like “Journey into Space” and all sorts of films that were popular.
No doubt it was all to do with the Cold War and having to beat the Russians.
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In January 1986, I was in London on a training course. The afternoon of January 28th, I came back to my room after class to be confronted by the appalling news of the Challenger disaster. We were all very shocked by it, yet it is perhaps surprising that there were not more such tragedies.
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With Challenger and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it seemed as if energy went out of the space race or maybe people just lost interest.
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While I am fascinated by the Universe and would love to know what and who is out there, I can’t help wishing that all that time, energy and money could be spent on bettering life here at home.
On our beautiful Blue Planet.
I couldn’t agree more with you, Carolyn, we should make all the improvements needed on our planet first, before exploring the universe. As we have done a lot of damage here already, it would be wrong to start destroying another planet too. I love the twilight walks! Thank you for the interesting thoughts!
Joanna
I am one of those ‘crackpots’ who doubt the truth of the Moon landings. Watching it at the time, I was 17, and a big film fan. I remember turning to my mum and saying, “This looks just like a film set, I don’t believe they are on the Moon. And why is there no real time lag with the conversation? You get a time lag when a TV new reporter is speaking from America. I was dismissed at the time, but many others have since questioned the same things.
Best wishes, Pete.
I did not grow up during the time of the moon landing, but I remember the tragic story of the Challenger. I’m not a skeptical person, but I have a few questions about the ‘space invaders.’ My trust in people is certainly not what it was 20 years ago … it seems like it has been far too easy for years to fabricate stories. But hey, let me not dwell on that.
I just read the definition of ‘dwell’: “It’s not about ignoring or avoiding—it’s more about consciously deciding not to let something occupy your emotional or mental space for longer than necessary.”
I like that!
I know that a great many engineering, technological, and scientific advances have come as a direct result of the various space programmes, but the money involved in achieving those is obscene. To see all the waste that takes place just for ultra-rich individuals to go up up to the Kármán line is horrible.
Here here 👏👏👏