Was 52 years ago today that men finally walked on the moon, arguably the greatest accomplishment of mankind. Technology drove forward at unprecedented paces in this bold attempt at what was considered impossible. I remember most of Apollo fairly vividly. It was a crazy ride!!
Yeah, I remember Dad rented a color TV, so he could watch the moon landing...
All we had back then was a black and white TV.
Which was funny, cause he could have stood in mission control and watched it.
Yup, Dad was a propulsion engineer for the LEM.
But he mostly used a slide rule.
One thing he taught me is that part of a Saturn V engine is held together with duct tape.
The moon's gravity was 1/10th that of earth, instead of the 1/8 previously assumed.
So, they had to force the LEM down to the surface using the steering jets, at the last second.
The LEM wouldn't land with it's own weight. There wasn't enough gravity.
So they plowed it into the moon to land it, true story.
At that time there was like 3 seconds of fuel left....almost didn't make it. That's how close it came to crashing, 3 seconds of fuel.
Those guys were sooooo obsessed with beating the Russians to the moon...
they did insane suicidal crazy poop. They were nuts.
They almost died literally.