Goodnight Moon: A Final Tribute to Apollo 11

To Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins for your service and bravery 40 years ago, we thank you.

To all the men and women of NASA and related industries who's brilliance and diligence helped put humans on the moon, we thank you.

To all the people of the world who support space exploration and dream (as we do) of going boldly where no man has gone before...we thank you.


To all the television networks and Internet websites who remembered with their coverage this historic day, the Flaming Nose says a very heart felt thank you. Especially to the History Channel which featured the original CBS telecast of the Apollo landing narrated by the unforgettable news anchor Walter Cronkite, who just passed away this week.

Forty years ago people all over the earth put their differences on pause, to watch humans take the first step towards the stars. May it happen again in my life time.

Next stop...Mars. (Imagine how great it will look on HDTV!)

Amazing Website from JFK Library on the Moon Mission Anniversary

Be sure to check out this fascinating page that is tracking the Apollo mission that launched 40 years ago today!

Called "We Choose The Moon", it's (I think) a real-time re-creation of the spaceflight, complete with audio transmissions, photos and a countdown clock. Just the weird sound of the website -- a kind of blank radio noise with occasional clicks and sounds -- is fascinating and a little unsettling. Highly recommended!

Apollo 11: 40th Anniversary This Week

This Thursday will mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission launch. The journey that followed for astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, became one of the most viewed television events of all time, as people from every nation turned to the small screen to see history being made.

I was a geeky little kid with blue glasses when my Dad stuffed us into the family station wagon and drove from NY to Florida to see the launch in person. We woke up before dawn on July 16th and drove as far down the beach as possible, to get closer to Cape Canaveral. I remember thinking how strange it was to see what was normally a deserted beach just covered with thousands of cars and people. We all had transistor radios so we could hear the launch countdown. Ours was a lime green Panasonic Ball and Chain model. Even though the crowd on that beach was huge, you could have heard a pin drop when Apollo 11 lifted off, on that bright July morning in 1969. Look at the fantastic NASA slow motion video posted above and you'll get a sense of the wonder reflected in the faces of the people lucky enough to witness this moment in person. See that fiery glowing rocket in the corner of the sky? That's humanity going to a different world for the first time. Heavenly.

Central Florida around the time of the Apollo 11 mission had "space fever". Half the buildings in the state looked like they were designed by the animators from The Jetsons. You could buy moon pies at the 7-11 and Blast Off cocktails at the beach side restaurants. We even had a beach ball colored to look like the surface of the moon. Here's a picture of it deflated, and being worn like a hat by our dog King.

I had space fever too after the launch, and would run from the beach back to our hotel room to watch the news coverage on a little black and white TV. On July 20, 1969, I sat with my sisters and parents while we watched the Eagle detach and then descend to the surface of the moon. We were part of the largest TV audience ever at that time. It was estimated that over 500 million people around the world watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. Below you'll see an excellent video depicting that moment. Be sure to watch all the way to the end, because there's a wonderful montage of folks from around the world, eyes wide and mouths agape, as Neil Armstrong makes the most famous step in history. I'm amazed that he came up with the line "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" on his way to the moon. Nice to think that not every great quote is from a ghost writer or PR agent.



As we remember the glorious and successful Apollo 11 mission, we actually have a modern day space flight to view tomorrow at 7PM eastern time. If all goes well, the much delayed STS-127 Endeavor mission to install new equipment on the space station will finally launch. Visit the NASA website to learn more or to watch the launch in streaming video.

Both Discovery and History channel websites also have plenty on Apollo 11. And History will be airing an Apollo 11 special on Modern Marvels, July 18th at 1pm.

There is not much to feel cheerful about these days, with millions of people out of work and the economy doing a nose dive. I think we need another shot of hope like that moment when JFK swore that the USA would land a man on the moon before the next decade. We did it then and we can do it again. So...note to President Obama: Please throw a little of that stimulus money over to NASA and we can make the next stop Mars!

The Flaming Nose Covers the "Summer of '69"

Three huge events occurred during the summer of 1969, and they all went on to become formative television moments which helped define the sixties for years to come. The Flaming Nose will be covering all and will be giving you a heads up on where you might find coverage (TV and Web) to mark their respective 40th anniversaries.

The first and most important is NASA's Apollo 11 moon voyage, which took place forty years ago in mid-July. At least three of the Flaming Nose bloggers are confirmed space program fanatics, so you can expect multiple posts over the next few weeks. The nasa.gov website already features some terrific information about the mission. I have a personal connection to the Apollo 11 story, since I was lucky enough to be standing on the beach in Florida when I was a kid to witness the launch with my own eyes. Quick TV factoid about the moon landing 40 years ago; according to Nielsen Media Research it was one of the most viewed live events (worldwide) for decades, with between 600 million and 1 billion watching Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. Immense population growth and greater availability of television globally has seen many additional events surpass that number, including the funeral for Princess Diana, which was estimated at 2.5 billion viewers.

The next event is as dark a moment as the Apollo 11 mission was glorious. On August 9th, 1969, the infamous Manson "family" began its murderous rampage in Los Angeles, by killing movie star Sharon Tate and her friends, and later the LaBianca couple. Captured months later, the trial of Manson and his followers became a television and media circus (and that was BEFORE cable!), as well as spawning the best selling true crime book of all time, "Helter Skelter". Here's another little personal factoid about the Manson murderers. For a while, the family from Hell hung out at the abandoned Spahn movie ranch in Chatsworth, California....a mere mile away from this blogger's current humble abode. I drove up there to see what has become of the ranch 40 years later. The familiar rocky hills are still there, but the ranch location is now a private gated picnic area. There are no buildings left and the only sign that it was once a ranch is a large wooden crossbar made out of railroad ties at the entrance.

The final big event from the summer of 1969 was the long weekend of peace, love and hallucinogenic drugs on Max Yasgur's upstate NY farm. Of course, we are referring to "Woodstock", the muddy four day music festival that rendered a feature length movie, an album, made stars out of many musicians and gave us the most interesting rendition of the National Anthem ever when Jimi Hendrix reinvented it on a rain soaked morning. And now for the final personal connection... I was raised in upstate NY, and I recall very well the hoards of colorful hippies hitch hiking up route 17 to attend the festival that weekend in August. I was way too young to go myself (darn!).

So strange to have connections to all three of these historical moments. I feel a little like Forest Gump right now.

Stay tuned for more on the Summer of '69, right here on The Flaming Nose!