I watched Chasing The Moon on PBS the last couple nights. Very good documentary! One thing that I never knew, all these years, is that there was a Russian spacecraft (unmanned) orbiting the moon at the same time the Americans were there and a landing craft descended to the surface with the intent to scoop up moon rock samples and return to Earth before Apollo 11. As it turned out the Russian craft (apparently) crash landed.
Yep, I knew … then again the kid I was at the time was a little space geek so I was following the whole moon race closely.
Sure,
It was part of the newscasts at the time. NASA said they were in contact with the Soviet Space Agency to make sure there was no danger of collision. Not that it was a serious concern, but just to be sure they checked.
We’ve watched the first episode over the last two nights. It’s really good at times and then … just skipping over a ton of important stuff.
And they don’t id the speaker in old clips enough. There was a clip with a woman explaining the Vanguard program. Oh, interesting. But who is she?
Huh. As a kid I would usually doze off again after the clock radio came. Then I would dream bizarre variations of the stories being announced. This was one of them and as I recall I even told it to someone. Never knew it was real, except I thought it was ours and thought they abandoned the idea. I think I even told my mother about it. But who listens to anyone else’s dreams?
(Yeah, yeah, hypnogia.)
I remember that at the time there was even some speculation that maybe the Soviet craft could rescue the U.S. astronauts in case they ran into difficulty, which made no sense at all.
Yeah, I was the 4th grader from Jacksonville who kept correcting the Space Center guide.
I was always right, but I regret being that kid sometimes.