Before I learned of the incredible story of herosim from yesterday, I was thinking about how when I was 7 years old, I was in my dark living room, leaning against a ladder (presumably because we were painting or had just painted the living room), watching An Astronaut climb down the ladder on the Space Ship to walk on the moon.
Though I wasn’t given to great introspection at the time, the news announcers were making sure everyone knew that this was a Big Freaking Deal. It gave me an image of “courage” (let’s not argue semantics) and achievement that stuck with me for some time. Not knowing how to aspire to that, I started thinking about math and science, and thinking and thinking and thinking, and ended up as an engineer, and when I’m not overly-stressed out by schedules, I like being an engineer. It’s both creative and methodical, though I’m rarely called on to put myself in harm’s way.
After, say 1975, what have 7 year olds seen that fills them with wonder and starts their brains ticking? Maybe I’m odd, but I only remember one or two things in my life before, say, eighth grade, and the Apollo landing is the only good one. Or, no need to limit it to nascent space geeks, what inspired you? I’m curious, even if you wanted to be a ballerina but ended up a WWE wrestler. I’m also a little dispirited, because people born after the moon landing have already grown to adulthood, and could have children and indeed grandchildren, all born in a world where we aren’t landing men on the moon.
I showed my five year old nephew the famous picture from Apollo 8 of the earth rising above the moon’s surface, but he didn’t seem impressed. He’s seen much better special effects on TV, and his (parents’) XBox has better graphics. It made me go
I was born in the waning days of 1970, and “the moon landing” was a given my whole life. I didn’t appreciate how recent the history was until I was at least 8 or 9 years old.
As far as space exploration goes, my formative years saw a lot of speculative articles in school material about building on the lunar missions towards the exploration of Mars. The Viking landers were a Big Deal, though the data it sent back was more disappointing than inspiring to me. I never got into the whole Space Shuttle thing.
I highly recommend the movie Apollo 13 as a wonderful capturing of the glory and engineering difficulty of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
As far as what truly moved me to wonder at what the human mind can achieve, to the point of trying to envision myself following in those footsteps: as excited as I was about space exploration, I was too scared of heights and prone to motion sickness (even now, I usually get nauseous even on kiddie roller-coasters and 3D simulation rides) to contemplate becoming an astronaut.
What caught my imagination was realizing that people have been able to figure out the grammar and vocabulary of dead languages in completely unfamiliar writings. This was likely prompted by the “current events” of the late 1970s involving the breakthroughs in deciphering Mayan hieroglyphs. I still marvel at how it was possible to simply build, little by little, on inferences of meanings and patterns and reconstruct a writing system and a language (though Mayan is still spoken today). Or how, after almost 2000 years, to re-decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs by means of the Rosetta Stone. Or the cuneiform writings of the Middle East, used to write several different now-dead languages (Akkadian, Sumerian, Old Persian, etc.).
Oh, as to what I ended up doing with that interest: I am a computer programmer. I do deal professionally with deciphering and encoding complexity, I suppose, and maintain a hobby-level of interest in philology and language evolution (even going so far as to devoting time to studying Latin, Medieval French and Modern French to appreciate a much better documented path of linguistic evolution).
:nod:
My own childhood in the 90s was rather uneventful as I cannot recall any huge major moments. I remember knowing on TV some guy name Jerry died, and I saw how sad a lady named Courtney was when her husband committed suicide. I recall the OJ trial, but I didn’t care about it… Oprah lost weight and gained it. She fought the texas cattle industry about being sued over beef… didn’t care.
I watched Jordan retire, and I was sad. I liked His Airness as a kid. I watched him come back. Watched him win. And Retire again, and I was bummed. But nothing big again. There were no big other moments on TV I’m thinking of- watched the President get flamed about having sex w/ Lewinsky, never saw that interview where he said “depends on the definition of is”, though I recall watching Oprah interview Michael Jackson and him moonwalking across the stage, and I admired him (as this was before all the scandals)… I remember columbine, and the other school shootings, but they were never on TV. Nothing super positive though stands out for me.
Nothing eventful ever happened on TV for me and no one made a big deal about anything, until 9-11.
That’s when it kinda all changed for me. I remember watching it, and over and over being told how things would change- it was during school, they stopped classes and put it on a TV to watch. So I got to see both towers eventually fall… I saw it all, and I remember the teachers telling me this is HUGE, that I will always remember it. And the stories that poured forth afterward of courage, heroism, etc. And that was the defining “big” moment for me I guess… the next one that would come along would be watching Obama win the election- that blew my mind as well.
Though now I’m in my early 20s, so most of the “major” things that’ve made an impression on me have been after the age of 16, and very few things as a child really got to me in that grand sense that you’re describing. I’m one of the people who remembers going to school and learning on “green screen” computers, and taking a class to learn how to use email and thinking “this’ll never really be useful” in 5th and 6th grade. I would learn about AIM 2-3 years later, and then chat rooms and the internet in the 8th grade.
My sister has no recollection of a “pre-internet”/“pre-Windows 95” computerized world. That to me is mind blowingly crazy, as we’re only born 8 or so years apart, she takes so many things for granted in communication, technology, and such that to me are just amazing… But then I’m sure I probably did the same thing compared to someone else who is in their 30s and 40s (as my uncles were blown away by my Sega and super Nintendo, when all they had growing up was pong).
It’s fascinating in a way to watch the new generations as each one becomes more and more willing to take things for granted, that even a group that’s only 1 or 2 generations out from the newest ones will become guardians and historians of an era just like that. My newly born cousin- I look at her with wonderment now, and just ask “What will she soon take for granted?”
It’s kinda a very cool thought and i think it’s a positive one that speaks about humanity’s growth and continually pushing forwards…
I remember the first walk on the moon and it was the first and only time that the nuns wheeled a big TV into the auditorium so that we could all watch it. It was a big, huge deal back then. I can’t think of any achievement since then that captured all of our imaginations in the way that it did. But, according to the nuns the options available to little Catholic schoolgirls were limited to mommy, nun, secretary and teacher so it didn’t inspire me to dream of being an astronaut. Burning my training bra was much more empowering.
I was born in '69, so I grew up with the shuttle program instead. I researched the pilots, and a lot of them came from the military. I volunteered for the Marine Corps, with guaranteed pilot slot. My plan was to fly F/A 18s and then put in for a transfer. A nasty motorcycle crash intervened, so that ended that goal.
As far as “filling a child’s mind with wonder” with moon landings and such, and having the modern child be jaded by it all ("I have better graphics on my game box), I found that going small actually works better, space exploration is seen as a mundane and boring, especially when compared against Sci-Fi television…
But show kids footage of common items viewed under an Electron Microscope?, now that’s cool, dust mites become towering monsters, crystals of common table salt become mountains or precious gems, to think that all that detail is there on a microscopic level, it’s mind-boggling…
Born in '76, but I grew up in Huntsville, AL, where I went to Challenger Middle and Gus Grissom High School, so the space program was always very close and very real to me, perhaps more than is typical in my generation. I certainly remember walking around Saturn 5 rockets and marveling at it all.
As far as TV goes, the Challenger explosion is the only event that is of that sort of magnitude in my mind, and I don’t know if that was because of my age and where I was or if it really was that big of a deal. In Huntsville it was like everyone had lost a family member. The Fall of the Berlin wall was a big deal and my dad certainly made me watch the news and made sure I understood it was an event I needed to remember.
I remember when Voyager reached Uranus and Neptune, but not seeing anything on TV–I read a lot of science magazines.
The Berlin Wall coming down in 89 was big eye-opening news for kids. Teachers and parents actually had to stop and give children a little background in world history.
I was born in 1966 so I just remember the Moon Landing and only barely on our old Black & White TV.
Slightly related: I remember making and keeping a clip book on the Venus Pioneer explorations. I think I still have it packed in a box with some old baseball cards and other odd mementos of my childhood.
I can’t remember any great acts of courage I witnessed as a kid. However, much later, I hope those brave students that stood up in Tiananmen Square inspired some young kids with heroism.
The US Airways pilot, Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III who safely landed an Airbus on the Hudson Riverlast night allowing everyone to escape safely.
I was born in 1982 and I must say that I barely recall any inspiring moments from childhood. Other than the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89, which I was too young to understand, the big media events in my memory were all negative ones. The OJ trial and the Monica Lewinsky business are the two that come to mind. In thinking back on my own childhood, I can’t recall any tales of heroism that affected me much. I had brief attachments to certain pro athletes at various times, but that never lasted long. I also attended a math and science high school, where they tried to make cult figures out of geeks like Linus Torvalds, but I was never sold on that.
Truthfully, I’d have to say that I didn’t have any persons or events to dream about in childhood that would match up with the moon landing. I do have a healthy respect for heroism that developed in my adult life, most of it building up in connection with my religious convictions. That focuses on human rights heros like Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King, Jr. Very different from the sort of thing that caught my attention as a child.
I also wonder about the effect that acute heroic deprivation has had on my generation. The lack of positive role models on the national scene probably contributes to the sarcastic, ironic tone that dominates among young adults. It also may explain why things like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are so popular; people turn to them for the inspiration that they aren’t getting in real life. In any case, we should surely heed the word of d’Israeli:
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heros.”
