Stargazing CApollo 11 50th Anniversary: CSPAN3 Coverage Today

[diogenesNY]

TL;DR Summary

50 year rerun of Apollo 11 coverage on Cspan3

Today on Cspan3

https://www.c-span.org/
They are broadcasting what is essentially a 50 year delay coverage of the Apollo 11 mission. I watched the launch, and it was _amazing_.

This seems to be mostly the straight CBS coverage with Walter Cronkite and an amazing stream of guests from Wally Shirra to LBJ. Really amazing stuff, and to think that this was 50 years ago. I was a very young kid at the time and I remember many of the launches and missions, although I don't specifically recall if I saw the launch and splashdown of 11 at the time (I was ~2.5 years old)... but I do recall following with fascination many of the subsequent missions.

Many recollections of watching launches and splashdowns on the old Large (for the time) color Zenith TV that my father had bought for Superbowl One. CBS seemed to be the almost-official network of space mission coverage, with Cronkite at the helm. Lots of my incidental knowledge of the day to day developments of the space program came vis CBS-In the News, the short blips of surprisingly hard news between Saturday morning cartoons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_News
I also have an unusually specific memory of overhearing, on the TV... apparently while I was doing something else, a break-in on the regular programming to report that the astronauts on Apollo 17 had discovered a patch of orange soil.

diogenesNY

 

[anorlunda]

I'm older, so I remember it well. I was glued to the TV the whole day. I was most amazed that the event which I read about as pure SF in my youth was not only happening, but being televised live. None of the SF authors I read dared to predict that.

The event stands out in my memory much more than the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the JFK assassination.

 

[berkeman]

My memories of that day are a bit different. I'm an Army brat (Army family member), and I was 11 y/o stationed with my family in Japan at the time. I was bright, but not dedicated to science yet, and I was not that much into the whole Moon Shot/Landing program effort at the time. My dad was also technical, and had worked on satellite procurement projects previously in his Army positions, and he and my mom were very interested in how the Moon Landing would work out.

I still remember that I was playing outside of our housing the day that the Landing was supposed to happen, and my mom and dad kept yelling for me to come inside because the landing was coming up soon. I really wasn't interested, and wanted to keep playing ball (or whatever I was doing), but in the end my dad pretty much dragged me inside to watch the landing and the first human steps on the moon. At the time I didn't appreciated it, but of course now I do understand how historic it was.

 

[davenn]

Apollo 11 launched from Earth on my 10th birthday (16th July 1969). What an awesome
way to celebrate my BD.
I was already well into playing with electronics, had my first telescope and had been following the
whole NASA space program for several years. Collecting cards that came in the breakfast cereal packs,
cutting out every newspaper clipping I could get my hands on.
My Grandad who got the National Geographic mag saved for me every issue that had anything to do
with space travel, astronomy and geology.
For the moon landing we (family) were transfixed to the old B&W TV watching it all happen
Dave