What do Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson...

[boomersooner]

I had just turned 8, and I remember my mom making me come in and watch it because of the historic moment.......I'm glad she did!!

[kokopup]

I worked for Nasa in the days leading up to putting men on the moon. While the average American may have understood the historical significants of that day, very few really appreciated the work and preparation that led up to that day. I worked on the Saturn 5 and know of all the problems that had to be overcome to meet Kennedy's deadline of a man on the moon before the end of the decade. There were many hours of work and lives sacrificed to get us there.

I remember attending a lecture by Wernher Von Braun in 1965 when he gave his vision of how we would put men on the moon. I remember thinking how impossible this was and all that could go wrong to prevent this from happening. The fact that we did put men on the moon in 1969 with the technology of that day is truly amazing. The Young people today take technology so for granted and haven't a clue what it takes to enable them to TEXT their friends across thousands of miles. If you told the average young person today we would put men on Mars tomorrow they would probably give you a shocked look and ask "you mean we haven't already been"

I am a little surprised at richard comparing Neil Armstrong to Michael Jackson... Comparing the two Moon walks would be like me comparing a monkey at the circus to Lance Armstrong because both had ridden a bicycles.

[RICHARD]

I am a little surprised at richard comparing Neil Armstrong to Michael Jackson... Comparing the two Moon walks would be like me comparing a monkey at the circus to Lance Armstrong because both had ridden a bicycles.

In no way was the comparison meant to lessen NA's accomplishment. IT was meant more tongue in cheek than anything else.

As the date drew near I was thinking about that summer and how the anny of the Moon Walk and the person who made up the 'moonwalk' were in the news. (Also Walter C passing away so close to the date!)


Of course, Lance and the monkey do have riding a bicycle in common, up until the point where you have to squeeze the ape into that form fitting yellow jersey, then, all bets are off?


Thanks for all your work with NASA, the county, and the space program.


And thanks to you, I'll be out tonight looking for the ISS on it's way by!

[Grace]

Oh boy - that was cool

Watching them land on the moon, again, exactly 40 years later, to the minute. Good job CNN.

[joycenalex]

i remember watching, snowy black and white pictures.....marveling at humans walking on land other then our terra ...amazing.

[Grace]

TIME magazine's cover story this week is about the 24 men who have walked on the surface of the moon. Fascinating!!

I found these 2 paragraphs to be very interesting -

NASA officials carefully screened for pilots who were made of tough physical stuff, and they chose well. In 1930, about the time most of the lunar astronauts were born, the life expectancy for a white American male was 59.1 years. In 2009, three-quarters of the former moonmen are still alive, and all of them are near or past 80 — not a likely result of chance. The doctors weren't looking equally hard for men who were free of poetry or fancy, but it was no surprise that they got that too. "They were all fighter pilots," says Dr. J.D. Polk, NASA's current chief of medical operations. "Psychologically speaking, they were a pretty self-selecting group."

But if the pilots weren't wired for wonder, they were wired for fun. After the successful mission of Apollo 11 — a serious, almost grimly flown affair — things loosened up, and the astronauts took advantage of the high adventure of their jobs. When the late Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12, hopped down from his lunar module, he eschewed any resonant words about small steps and giant leaps and went instead for a simple "whoopee!"

[RICHARD]

TIME magazine's cover story this week is about the 24 men who have walked on the surface of the moon. Fascinating!!

I found these 2 paragraphs to be very interesting -

Years ago I spied a small article in the paper that crushed me.

Neil Armstrong had an accident that took off a part of his finger. He was in a barn working when it happened. I was so stunned that someone who had gone to the moon could fall victim to such an earthly misfortune.

My heroes never stumble.