I have the worst story of all. I missed it entirely.
I was 17 and was studying in Europe, so it happened in the wee hours of the morning for me.
I fell asleep about 2 a.m., and when I woke up, it was over.
Thank goodness for Life magazine.
It’s a magnetic reel, that was sent to storage. They were going to remove the last machine capable of reading the tape, then somebody went where’s the moon landing tape. Thanks to the public outcry they will keep the machine until the tapes can be found and tranfered to a medium at the full original resolution. I don’t see where it would be of any use for somebody to take home. I do see the government throwing it out, because it’s a stupid mistake, and that’s our government to the t.
I was -4. 
Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to be alive for the first Mars landing. Or the first woman on the moon.
I was almost 2, so I don’t remember it, and have to settle for saying “the moon landing happened within my lifetime.” Someday, that will be impressive enough.
“To the moon, [del]Hillary[/del] Alice! To the moon!”
I was a young boy, but my folks let me stay home from school & watch it on TV.
That would have been Alan Bean.
I was born in 1968, and there’s a photo of me in diapers next to a copy of the newspaper from Neil’s home town announcing his landing on the Moon. The only Moon landing I remember clearly, however, is the Apollo 17 one. I sat up against the tube of our big, floor standing TV and kept touching the screen, wishing that I could be there. When my brother told me that it was the last time we’d be landing on the Moon “this century,” I was incensed and threw a temper trantrum screaming about how stupid it was we weren’t going back.
FWIW I didn’t get what you were referring to either. I’m not a Potterphile and Og knows I rarely go near Livejournal.
I was…let me see here…almost exactly the same age as engineer_comp_geek was when the moon landing happened, and I had a fairly similar experience and level of understanding of it.
I have distinct memories of watching an Apollo moon landing on TV at the house we lived in at the time. My mother tells me that was in fact Apollo 11 but my memory doesn’t match up with certain details (like time of day and stuff) which makes me think I might be conflating another Apollo mission with 11.
Don’t forget the Apollo 1 flash fire. I don’t think kids and young adults even realize it ever happened.
I was lying on my back, in the front yard of our barracks, at a missile base in Germany. Ten days before rotation and discharge, and pretty much a civilian in green clothes, I was sublimely happy, and the moon landing was wonderful. Our Television was crap, but we had direct feed from both NASA, and Houston on the base announcer, going out all over. Clipped military voices, no one providing “color” commentary. Needless to say, every single member of our unit was a complete space program groupie. In the days before, we were listening to our group commander talking with a relative who was at launch point, taking a break from countdown duties. (Yeah, but did he know anything interesting? No.)
Tris
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last men to visit the moon, Dec 14, 1972. As mission commander, Cernan elected to go aboard last. ~ Wikki ~
I watched the moon landing on a rather small black & white TV placed in the middle of a huge tent in the middle of the boy scout jamboree in Idaho surrounded by hundred of guys dressed in boy scout uniforms.
I not only remember Apollo 11, I remember the Gemini flights that preceded it. I don’t really remember the Mercury flights, but I remember the astronauts. Gus Grissom, “Gordo” Cooper, and Wally Schirra flew Gemini missions, and I was aware of Alan Shepard and John Glenn as the first two Americans in space. And names such as Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and Ed White quickly became familiar names. I remember Ed White’s historic space walk and the missions to dock Gemini with other vehicles, particularly the Gemini VI and VII docking mission. And of course I remember when the nation mourned in 1967 when Grissom, White, and Roger Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 fire.
We watched For All Mankind yesterday (Saturday) morning for the first time. That was the 21st, but it was still the 20th in the US, so I guess it counts as having watched it on the anniversary of the landing. An excellent Apollo documentary.
Directed by one of the scriptwriters for Apollo 13 and made with the original NASA films that had to thawed out. Tonight, I picked up Neil’s biography in hardback (it was only $5.98!). Clint Eastwood has the film rights to the book (and the clerk said that when the book first came out, they had trouble keeping them in stock).
I was almost five when Neil Armstrong first stepped out of the LEM, and don’t think I remember that particular mission, although I vaguely remember some of the later Apollo missions. Still an amazing human achievement, well worth remembering. I just hope we’ll build upon their achievements with a return to the Moon, and missions to Mars and beyond. I’m convinced that our destiny lies in space.