Apollo 11

[Bats]

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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I'm with you and find it quite astounding how some people believe it was faked.
That would be a big old thing to fake!

[novocastrian]

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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nail on head notwithstanding the laughable belief that the USA faked going to the moon 8 times...

during the cold war the space race was just as big if not bigger than the arms race*, if the soviets had even a hint of it being faked they would have been all over it... but hey plenty nerds on the internet know better than 1000's of Soviet scientists..

*arguably bigger as it was widely assumed nuclear weapons would be deployed in space or even on the moon by whoever got there first

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Anybody who wants a good read have a look at Operation Paperclip. That was the Americans spiriting Von Braun and hundreds of German scientists out of their Country in the years following WW11.

Put them years ahead of the Russians albeit they also grabbed scientists but not of such high caliber. Plus who wants to work for them? Get it wrong get shot!

[RickT]

Originally Posted by Omega1

One stat that made me think was that 1 billion people watched on tv or listened on the radio.

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This is interesting though that Facebook estimated that 2.7 billion people use the application.

[gl20]

I had an aunt who played a small part in this. She worked in the labs on the moon rock (which came from a local quarry as they didn’t actually land on the moon of course)

Couple of anecdotes:

- one experiment was to try and grow watercress on the moon rock as I) they wanted to start with something that can seemingly grow on anything and build up from there and II) it was the late 60s and so they were probably thinking they’d need watercress on the moon for when they had salad (ironically it would probably be ‘rocket’ now). Anyway, it was a total failure. They couldn’t get anything to grow on it.

- she went to a convention a few years back where they had the usual piece of rock for people to touch with 4 guards around it. She was saying what a contrast this was to her days in the labs where they were chucking out used samples as, whilst it was clear Apollo was coming to an end, the expectation was they’d be back on the moon soon enough

Omega1 - do you wear a Speedmaster by any chance?

[Omega1]

Originally Posted by gl20

Omega1 - do you wear a Speedmaster by any chance?

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Sorry, I’m a Tissot man!

[gl20]

Was just wondering from your name and subject of this thread!

[novocastrian]

Originally Posted by Mr Tom Morrow

Anybody who wants a good read have a look at Operation Paperclip. That was the Americans spiriting Von Braun and hundreds of German scientists out of their Country in the years following WW11.

Put them years ahead of the Russians albeit they also grabbed scientists but not of such high caliber. Plus who wants to work for them? Get it wrong get shot!

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to be fair the soviets did a canny job they got satellites then animals and a man in space before the US of A

i think this spurred the US to pile countless billions into Apollo, money i guess the Soviets just didnt have...

but will look out this book, love owt like this

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Originally Posted by novocastrian

to be fair the soviets did a canny job they got satellites then animals and a man in space before the US of A

i think this spurred the US to pile countless billions into Apollo, money i guess the Soviets just didnt have...

but will look out this book, love owt like this

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Only £3.99 on the Kindle.

[Big Donald 1983]

Originally Posted by novocastrian

to be fair the soviets did a canny job they got satellites then animals and a man in space before the US of A

i think this spurred the US to pile countless billions into Apollo, money i guess the Soviets just didnt have...

but will look out this book, love owt like this

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Very true, in many ways the soviets really won the space race as they had the first satellite, first animal, first man and woman, first spacewalk, first orbit, first space station.
The Americans picked the moon as it was the thing they had most chance of beating them to.