Pic from NASA

Ah, I remember sitting on the cold tiles in our basement, watching the moon landing on our cabinet TV (wood enclosure; TV tube top, speaker bottom).

I remember being upset over the clarity of the pics – we cut from some network news/report from Mission Control to some wildly contrasty images.

From the moon.

Neil Armstrong climbing down the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) ladder and stepping onto the moon.

Forty years ago.

I was 10 years old. When I think back about it, I still am (10 years old). I was there. How amazing?!

Given all that I know (and don’t know) about computers, physics and so on, it’s still that much more amazing (watch Apollo 13 – lots of slide rules [which I mastered and no longer need]; save a space project with a slide rule? I’m listening…).

Kudos to all the Apollo program members, and I recall (after the fact [I was 3] ) JFK’s address to Rice University:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon… (interrupted by applause) we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

— John F. Kennedy, We choose to go to the moon (9/12/1962)