Monday, July 20, 2009
It was 40 years ago today ...
Our family was driving to South Dakota when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. I remember watching it on a snowy black-and-white TV, somewhere in the heartland. (Normally, we wouldn't spring for a motel - much less one with a TV - so this was a big deal.)
That summer, Gulf Oil gave away paper cutout models of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) if you bought a tank of gas. Mike and I got several of these during the trip, and one survives to this day - it's been hanging in the attic for decades.
Another of the paper models was built with a Black Cat payload. That one never made it back.
P.S. Turns out you can download, print out, and build your own Gulf LEM, along with many other spacecraft. Now that's what the Internet was made for.
That summer, Gulf Oil gave away paper cutout models of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) if you bought a tank of gas. Mike and I got several of these during the trip, and one survives to this day - it's been hanging in the attic for decades.
Another of the paper models was built with a Black Cat payload. That one never made it back.
P.S. Turns out you can download, print out, and build your own Gulf LEM, along with many other spacecraft. Now that's what the Internet was made for.
Labels: history, Internet, news, personal history, science, travel, TV
# posted by F.S. @ 8:42 AM 
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Frankly, I don't remember the first lunar landing, but I was aware of later landings and, particularly, the SkyLab project and the Apollo/Soyuz... Turned out, coincidentally, that we fired our spacecraft's rockets on the first leg of its journey to lunar orbit on the day of the Apollo 11 anniversary, too! Our complicated path to the Moon looks like a plate of spaghetti, but we're off!
I hope all is swell with you in CV. I still enjoy the Boulevardier entries...
John
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I hope all is swell with you in CV. I still enjoy the Boulevardier entries...
John
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