Comments on: What Were You Doing 40 Years Ago Today?

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:24:08 +0000

I’ve been looking Jim. After an illness last year I moved and some stuff ended up stored in a cousin’s semi-trailer. So I don’t knw what happened. Though come to think, it could be at my mother’s….

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:20:55 +0000

Lynn David, do you still have the photo you took with the Instamatic?

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:19:40 +0000

Gina, that’s a great story.

I was eight at the time, and we wouldn’t get our first color television for another full year.

I do remember getting up very early in the morning to watch the Apollo 12 moonwalk. We still had the B&W set, but NASA that time decided to send a color camera. I guess a lot of people like your family were disappointed at the B&W pictures for Apollo 11. ;-) But I also remember that the color TV camera was very delicate, and when the astronauts moved it for a different shot, they accidentally pointed it at the sun which damaged the camera. That basically ended the broadcasting of live pictures of the moon for the rest of the mission. Boy was I mad!

I have very clear memories of the Apollo 11 moonwalk; I’ll have more on that later.

By: Gina9223

Gina9223 — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:10:59 +0000

My dad had bought a color TV just for the Applo 11 mission. It cost $249.99 and was a huge 27 inch console Magnavox. The color was so vivid, the sounds slanted towards a deep bass…the rumbling of the take off and the rich colors were so beutiful.

The day they landed my dad drove like a luntic coming home and ran into the house and looked at the screen….

The picture was black and white. “Whats wrong with the TV?” He tried everything,but the problem was the Applo mission took a black and white camera to the moon. Nasa scientists had looked at the grey of the moon and had decided to send only a B&W camera because there were no colors on the moon to see.

My dad was so pissed at that.

By: Vancity

Vancity — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:01:19 +0000

I was but a gleam in my parents’ eyes….

By: Alex Karan

Alex Karan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:37:48 +0000

I was kicking in my mother’s belly. I was to be born one month and 6 days later. Yes, I’m turning 40 next month.

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:16:34 +0000

Well, I guess by then it was called Cape Kennedy, later to revert to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:39:59 +0000

I WAS THERE! Yep, I’m 54. My family had gone down to Florida from Indiana just to see the launch and visit family in Tampa. It was amazing all the people who were on the first causeway south of the Space Center which was Cape Canavaral then. It was all over so fast though I got to see some of it go up through binoculars and some folks even had a TV out there with the CBS broadcast.

On the way off the causeway they were announcing the progress over the radio and it hit something like 1000 miles down-range and dad remarked something to the effect that ‘they’ve gone a thousand miles and we haven’t even gone a quarter mile getting off this causeway!’

Later on we were in a motel in Tampa and I even took a picture with my Kodak Instamatic Camera of the first astronauts on the moon off of the old B&W TV.

And that fall I first came out to a friend.

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:35:09 +0000

Well who the heck posts a video on YouYube and inhibits embedding???

Anyway, found another version. Hope this wrks.

By: Cooner

Cooner — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:23:49 +0000

I wasn’t born yet.

However, I was born exactly one year after Neil Armstrong made his historic footprint. :)