Chasing the Moon (PBS American Experience)

[LadyStanley]

DVR alert.

Starting July 8 (check local listings), PBS airing a three-part "American Experience" on the history of the space race and the effort to go to the moon.

Click to read more...

 

[bluesXwinXtheXcup]

I'll watch, but geez.

It's been played out.

 

[LadyStanley]

I'll watch, but geez.

It's been played out.

Less than two weeks to 50th anniversary of landing on the moon. That's why there's interest.

I remember being gathered around the TV to watch the landing with family.

Unless you lived through it, it might just seem like so much noise and not a series of so many firsts and challenges/accomplishments.

 

[NyQuil]

There was a pretty nifty PC game back in the day called Race into Space.

You had to work up to the moon mission and build up all the requisite technology, experience and equipment over many years.

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space - Wikipedia

It really drove home the idea that it was the culmination of an immense effort.

 

[LadyStanley]

Think nothing you've ever used was first used by astronauts or gone to the moon?

Tang (all the rage in the 1970s)

Transistors, computer chips. Your phone is perhaps 1000 times more powerful than the computer that landed the lunar module on the moon. (And a heck of a lot smaller)

And more
Top 10 NASA Inventions

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11358

 

[These Are The Days]

Sounds awesome. I wonder if it'll be anything like From The Earth To The Moon

 

[JMCx4]

Think nothing you've ever used was first used by astronauts or gone to the moon? ...

NASA stole the Lunar Rover idea from Caddyshack II. But in their defense, it was the only good thing that came from that movie.

 

[LadyStanley]

NASA stole the Lunar Rover idea from Caddyshack II. But in their defense, it was the only good thing that came from that movie.

Caddyshack II released in 1988.

NASA was in the Shuttle era at that point. Last on the moon in 1972.

 

[JMCx4]

Caddyshack II released in 1988.

NASA was in the Shuttle era at that point. Last on the moon in 1972.

Your version of science clearly has no sense of humor.

 

[LadyStanley]

@JMCx4 SpaceBalls is a classic

 

[JMCx4]

NOW you're talkin'.

 

[LadyStanley]

Finally finished the three part PBS American Experience (6 hours) on the space program (Mercury -> Apollo 12). Lots of archival footage with astronaut interviews, Nikita Kruchev's son (talking about the USSR side of things), and other social points. Interviews (and footage, photographs, current retrospective interviews) from family and other key NASA workers (like the black test pilot that was an astronaut candidate or the only female engineer in MOCR). (Fun clip of Doris Day from movie filmed in facilities and then addressing public on NASA's utility/readyness)

IMHO an excellent show incorporating social, political, scientific and personal points of view. Great opportunity to understand how things fit together in society and between countries.

Recommended.