Apollo 11

[Omega1]

I’ve been watching some of the news items on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. One stat that made me think was that 1 billion people watched on tv or listened on the radio. What made it more remarkable was that the world population in 1969 was 3.2 billion - today it’s 7.7 billion. The earth’s population has more that doubled in 50 years.

[Bats]

Huge 'audience' for a fake landing (I'm kidding)!

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Population swings are an interesting subject ( I must get out more)

Worth looking at Spanish flu and wars etc.

How about this though!

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.

[Purplefrog]

I remember pestering my Mum to let me watch it cos it was in the early hours of the morning our time.
I was only about 5 or 6 and needless to say she didn't let me... 😢

[Omega1]

Originally Posted by Bats

Huge 'audience' for a fake landing (I'm kidding)!

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That was discussed - but how would NASA keep 50000 employees silent for 50 years? I’m definitely in the ‘they landed on the moon’ camp.

[Big Donald 1983]

Originally Posted by Omega1

That was discussed - but how would NASA keep 50000 employees silent for 50 years? I’m definitely in the ‘they landed on the moon’ camp.

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400,000 people worked on the Apollo project in total. No way would they have silenced all of those. Any not to mention the Russians would have had a thing or two to say if there was even a hint of it being staged.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Big Donald 1983

400,000 people worked on the Apollo project in total. No way would they have silenced all of those. Any not to mention the Russians would have had a thing or two to say if there was even a hint of it being staged.

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Plus the fact that you can still see the remains of the lunar lander (and other stuff) on the moon from various lunar orbital spacecraft. China, Japan, India - as well as the USA - have all confirmed that the equipment, and even footprints, are still there.

In addition, they set up various equipment - such as the retroreflectors - on the Moon. We can aim lasers at these reflectors today and get a precise measurement of the distance.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Omega1

I’ve been watching some of the news items on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. One stat that made me think was that 1 billion people watched on tv or listened on the radio. What made it more remarkable was that the world population in 1969 was 3.2 billion - today it’s 7.7 billion. The earth’s population has more that doubled in 50 years.

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You can watch the world's population grow (by about 2 or 3 people a second) here:

worldometers.info/world-population/

And here's how the world's population has risen over the last 200 years:

It is a little worrying when you see how much the population has increased in the last 80 years or so.

[Lumpy]

The main cause of the population increase is not due to birth rate increasing but due to life expectancy increasing. Most countries have birth rates at or slightly below population maintenance however as people are not dying at the same rate the population continues to increase. Obviously there are some exceptions to this but increased longevity is the main reason why the population continues to grow

[WhereIBelong]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

You can watch the world's population grow (by about 2 or 3 people a second) here:

worldometers.info/world-population/

And here's how the world's population has risen over the last 200 years:

It is a little worrying when you see how much the population has increased in the last 80 years or so.

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Cheers... just lost half an hour there! Apparently - following links etc - my home town has twice the population of Greenland...

amazing how many ways you can find to procrastinate when the housework needs doing...