Apollo 11

By cevans on January 30, 2007.

Three incredible, little-known things about the Apollo 11 mission:

1. Although everyone knows what Neil Armstrong said as he hopped out of the landing module, I've always preferred Buzz Aldrin's elegiac phrase, "Beautiful. Beautiful. Magnificent desolation." This leads me to the next point.

2. Aldrin, always the most conceptually approachable of the Apollo 11 astronauts, claims in this interview that he (as well as Collins and Armstrong) observed an unidentified ship traveling alongside theirs, but never said anything about it for fear of being sent back to Earth. The sighting, which was repeated on later Apollo missions, has never been formally acknowledged by NASA, although video of it exists.

3. In the event that the moon-walkers might become stranded on the moon and, by consequence, die there, president Nixon had a funerary speech prepared, entitled "In Event of Moon Disaster." Reading it offers a devastating glimpse at an alternate past. Imagine this as part of our cultural vocabulary: "For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

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for some more unknowns, you might interview my mother! she interviewed the crew back in the 70's when she was the DJ of her high school radio station in iceland.

Maybe it was Russellâs Celestial Teapot. Proof at last!

Bertrand Russell suggested that between the Earth and Mars there is an orbiting china teapot. The teapot is so small it is impossible to observe and therefore impossible to disprove. Yes the logic is wrong but he goes on to make a good point about burden of proof.

Universe is one of my favorites. Keep it up

This part of the disaster speech especially grabbed me in relation to seeing Wild Blue Yonder (Herzog)

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to "the deepest of the deep," concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

Lost Cosmonauts?

Also the story of that first lost space shuttle is so sad. The engineer who recommended they not launch later had a breakdown.

I think space is a great inspiration. I want to do something with space weather sometime.

"For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

What might have been. I wonder if it would have set us back more (is that possible?) or inspired us to greater effort?