Moonwalking for Real — 40th Anniversary Edition

Ronald Bailey | July 20, 2009

Ignore all the hype about the alleged need for new government sponsored manned space missions. As a commemoration of the event, just enjoy the newly cleaned up video from Apollo 11's landing on the moon 40 years ago here.

Comments

|7.20.09 @ 12:37PM|#

Cleaned up like Lucas did with Star Wars to hide the fingerprints of the FX guys? :-)

|7.20.09 @ 12:40PM|#

Interesting. There seems to be no shadow from the flag. I smell a conspiracy.

Shannon Love|7.20.09 @ 12:43PM|#

Going to the moon was neat and produced many good side effects but we should always remember that the Apollo programs primary function was to serve as political theater to demonstrate the superiority of the American system to that of the Soviet Union.

We shouldn't ever look to a very, very, very large propaganda stunt as a model for the long term development of space or any other field of endeavor.

|7.20.09 @ 12:44PM|#

I think they got rid of the reflection of the director and crew from the visor...
Seriously, going to the moon was valuable...kind of like me visiting my cousin...that I also havn't returned to in 40 years. But I am planning a return...

|7.20.09 @ 12:47PM|#

Would you rather live in Gaza or on the moon?

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 12:47PM|#

I had no idea that the government created photohop 40 years ago for the moon landing.

T|7.20.09 @ 12:54PM|#

I had no idea that the government created photohop 40 years ago for the moon landing.

Damn, Naga, that's how FEA and image manipulation software got started. Where have you been?

stuartl|7.20.09 @ 1:00PM|#

Isn't it obvious that we need to go back to the moon to see if we really went to the moon the first time? We can check to see if there is a flag there and also try to find the monsters that ate its shadow.

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 1:02PM|#

Safely ensconsed in my Fortress of Ignorance. No amount of "facts" or "truths" may assault me there.

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 1:02PM|#

stuartl,

Langoliers?

|7.20.09 @ 1:07PM|#

Naga, do matches burn? Does food have taste?

Anonymous|7.20.09 @ 1:12PM|#

Space is one of those areas where I just go all big government. I can't help it, its too damn cool to wait for it to be profitable :(

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 1:13PM|#

Episiarch,

Of course. In that realm though dog shit tastes like filet mignon and, though naked, I'm convinced I wear the most fabulous clothing around.

stuartl|7.20.09 @ 1:13PM|#

I hadn't heard of them before, but Langoliers seem to be the most likely hypothesis. To answer Episiarch, matches don't burn and neither Tang nor freeze dried food have any flavor.

Where is Dave_W when you need him?

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 1:18PM|#

stuartl,

Even now, Dave W. is slinking through a warehouse looking for the evidence to blow his HFCS case wide open.

Cabeza de Vaca|7.20.09 @ 1:27PM|#

"Where is Dave_W when you need him?"

We may never hear from him again. You can't keep exposing the governments cover ups & expect them to do nothing.

|7.20.09 @ 1:39PM|#

Look! There aren't any stars!

Prooferz of the world, unite!

T|7.20.09 @ 1:41PM|#

Look! There aren't any stars!

Bah! It's full of stars!

kinnath|7.20.09 @ 1:43PM|#

Sitting on the floor in grandma's living room; centered between the 26" console on one side and the box fan on the other -- still sweltering anyway; watching the grainy footage; and hearing "one small step . . . . "

Kyle Jordan|7.20.09 @ 2:04PM|#

"Space is one of those areas where I just go all big government. I can't help it, its too damn cool to wait for it to be profitable :("

I'm pretty much with you on this one.

.|7.20.09 @ 2:07PM|#

Can't you just point the Hubble at the moon and look for a flag?

|7.20.09 @ 2:13PM|#

No.

Naga Sadow|7.20.09 @ 2:13PM|#

They fucked up the Hubble's lenses. All the "photos" from the "Hubble" are faked. "Crab Nebula"? Bullshit!

|7.20.09 @ 2:20PM|#

The Hubble left pre-loaded with images. They just download a couple when they want something.

|7.20.09 @ 2:20PM|#

I thought that they just had a memorial for the guy who did the real moonwalking.

|7.20.09 @ 2:22PM|#

kinnath, I was on the floor as well. Up way too late for my 13 year old body in front of a 19" B&W television in the living room. I'll never forget it.

Now I say screw NASA. Those government teat sucking bureaucrats with PhDs.

kinnath|7.20.09 @ 2:25PM|#

NASA died when they changed the mission from ground-breaking stuff (Apollo) to deployment-enabling stuff (the Shuttle). Of course, killing a few crews always leads to lots and lots of useless oversight.

|7.20.09 @ 2:30PM|#

That is exactly correct. NASA's first, best mission was cutting edge technology development.

In 1970 they chose to become a space transportation company.

|7.20.09 @ 2:31PM|#

Can't you just point the Hubble at the moon and look for a flag?

Aside from the fact that Hubble would have trouble tracking the moon because the moon moves too fast, its optical resolution at the moon is around 65 meters. It could not see a house on the moon, much less an Apollo descent stage, the largest thing left.

|7.20.09 @ 2:39PM|#

Despair.com has settled the argument for us:

http://www.despair.com/ac.html

|7.20.09 @ 2:44PM|#

Why does it cost so many hundreds of billions to go back to the moon? Can't they just photocopy the old blueprints? I'm sure somebody's got an old TI-30 lying around.

dfd|7.20.09 @ 2:58PM|#

Can't you just point the Hubble at the moon and look for a flag?

Aside from the fact that Hubble would have trouble tracking the moon because the moon moves too fast, its optical resolution at the moon is around 65 meters. It could not see a house on the moon, much less an Apollo descent stage, the largest thing left.

You don't need the Hubble when you have the LRO which has already returned early images of five of the six Apollo landing sites. You can see the descent stage shadows and even the tracks left by the Apollo 14 astronauts as they moved between the Lunar Module and scientific instrument packs left on the surface.

|7.20.09 @ 3:10PM|#

Oh i see, they had a bar across the top of the flag to keep it out....

I always wondered what the hell was going on there.

dfd|7.20.09 @ 3:26PM|#

I always wondered what the hell was going on there.

Really? I mean of all the amazingly challenging technology it took to get men to the moon, getting the flag to to extend in a vacuum so it was visible left you scratching your head? Seems trivial by any standard. Anyway there were wires in the flag that gave it its shape.

Brian Sorgatz|7.20.09 @ 3:42PM|#

Interesting. There seems to be no shadow from the flag. I smell a conspiracy.

Does the moon really exist?

Mike Laursen|7.20.09 @ 3:47PM|#

"Space is one of those areas where I just go all big government. I can't help it, its too damn cool to wait for it to be profitable :("

I'm pretty much with you on this one.

Statists! You know who else was into government-run space exploration?! Nazis, that's who! Well, I'm sure they would have been...

Untermensch|7.20.09 @ 3:53PM|#

Just thought I'd share the latest conspiracy theory in Russia that explains why we didn't really go to the moon. (They claim it was faked in the Kalahari and that a Russian-Chinese team will be the first to really get there.)

"According to the laws of the moon, the entry of nationals of a country that launched so many wars is prohibited. It puts up a force field at every instance.… It has remote-controlled craters that dissolve intruders into purple liquid in a matter of seconds."

This and more fun here.

(For what it's worth, these guys so-called "astral communists" are the fun-lovin' lunatic fringe in Russia, the ones who know they are a little crazy and have fun with it. They also believe that Stalin was a manifestation of the great Communist soul of the universe sent to usher in the truth to the rest of us.)

smartass sob|7.20.09 @ 6:17PM|#

They also believe that Stalin was a manifestation of the great Communist soul of the universe sent to usher in the truth to the rest of us.)

The Second Coming? Considering that Marxism is built upon a system of ethics with the same underlying philosophical premise as that of the Christian religion, their belief is not all that outlandish. ;-)

|7.20.09 @ 7:02PM|#

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets?

|7.20.09 @ 7:06PM|#

Tor collects Sci-Fi writer's rememberences of the moon landing:

http://jeditrilobite.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/moon-retrospectives/

Rudy Rucker comes across as a bit of a dick:

The next day, as is well known, Neil Armstrong got his first line slightly wrong, that is, he said, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind, " without saying the "a." That bothered me, adding to my sense of disappointment with the astronauts' uninspired and inarticulate remarks. It's worth remembering that the moon landing came at the tail end of the war in Viet Nam, and many people my age had strongly negative feelings about the military. Ultimately, all twelve of the Apollo moon-walkers were employed by the military or by NASA-which seriously dampened the vibe.

smartass sob|7.21.09 @ 12:05AM|#

MikeP | July 20, 2009, 7:02pm | #

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets?

No, Mike. The ethic underlying both Christianism and Marxism is altruism: One's existence must be justified by one's service to others, whether they be God, one's fellow man, or the State. "Love thy neighbor as thou love thyself." "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." The premise of both systems is that one's actions are moral only in so far as someone else is the beneficiary of them.

|7.21.09 @ 4:37AM|#

To be fair, even to the extent one believes it requires altruistic ethics, at least Christianism asks it of its believers voluntarily. That cannot be said for Marxism.

Or even said for Democratism, Republicanism, etc.

"The only organized political party with a Christian vision of morality is the Libertarian Party." -- Walter E. Williams

joel|7.21.09 @ 2:42PM|#

Why does the lander shadow seem to slant up to the right, the astronaut straight to the right, and the lower right rock shadow slant down to the left. Using my mind to draw where the lines would meet - it appears the sun is located about 100 meters off the picture to the left!! Conspiracy!!!