The Hornblower collection by Forester consists of eleven novels (one unfinished) and five short stories. The first novel was published in 1937, and the last completed novel was published in 1962. Forester died in 1966.
50 years ago today, Apollo Eleven had already launched on 16 July 1969 and was on its way to the moon. After approximately 2½ days of flying to the moon, Apollo 11 will cross the equigravisphere, the point where the moon’s gravitational attraction equals that of the earth, at 2012hrs tonight, fifty years ago today.
I’ve excerpted and constructed this Apollo 11 Timeline. All times are PDT.
Apollo 11 Timeline
(all times PDT)
16 July 1969
➤ 0632: launch, liftoff of Apollo 11
➤ 0633: Mach 1 achieved
➤ 0635: Stage II ignition
➤ 0641: Stage III ignition (S-IVB)
➤ 0643: Earth orbit insertion, Stage III ignition cutoff
➤ 0916: Stage III TLI burn ignition
➤ 0922: Stage III TLI burn cutoff, velocity >24,000 MPH
➤ 0922: TLI achieved, Trans-Lunar Injection – they’re on their way to the moon!
➤ 0956: CSM docs with LM, command service module, lunar module
➤ 1113: S-IVB maneuver to lunar slingshot
17 July 1969
➤ 0917: midcourse correction (3-sec burn), 24 hours after achieving TLI, Trans-Lunar Injection
18 July 1969
➤ 1402: Armstrong and Aldrin enter LM for initial inspection (for approx 2½ hrs)
➤ 2012: crossing the equigravisphere, the point where the moon’s gravitational attraction equals that of the earth; it took them about 2½ days to reach this point after they had achieved TLI, Trans-Lunar Injection
Excerpted from:
◆ Apollo 11 Timeline
◆ log
◆ Apollo 11 - Wikipedia
◆ Apollo 11 transcript starting at 04 06 45 04 on Spacelog
◆ Did Buzz Aldrin Take Communion on the Moon? | Snopes.com
◆ Trans-Earth injection - Wikipedia
According to Buzz Aldrin, just as he was getting ready to step off the lunar module, he reached back and took the cassette of “Fly Me to the Moon” that Quincy Jones had arranged and conducted for Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, and turned it on, making it the first music played on the moon.
According to Buzz Aldrin, shortly after landing on the moon and before Neil went out the door to look around, he solemnly gave thanks with a quiet service of holy communion — the first meal on the moon.
According to Pixar producers, the Toy Story astronaut character was originally named Lunar Larry, but it sounded “too wacky”, so while trying to rechristen him “we went through some space terms and the word light-year came up, and the coolest astronaut name was Buzz Aldrin.” Aldrin acknowledged the tribute when he pulled a Buzz Lightyear doll out during a speech at NASA, to rapturous cheers. A clip of this can be found on the Toy Story 10th Anniversary DVD. Aldrin did not, however, receive any endorsement fees for the use of his first name.
The Washington Monument has been illuminated this week as a Saturn V rocket, in honor of the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first manned landing on the Moon.
The competing Soviet program to put a man on the moon effectively ended with an on-pad explosion of the N-1 rocket which would have powered it.
In addition to flying the first American woman, African-American, Dutchman and Canadian into space; carrying three Spacelab missions; and performing the first night launch and night landing of a Space Shuttle, Challenger was also the first space shuttle to be destroyed in an accident during a mission.
The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, was built in 1976, and was only used in testing and had no orbital capability. Four fully operational shuttles were initially built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in mission accidents: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of fourteen astronauts killed. A sixth shuttle, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger. The Space Shuttle was retired from service upon the conclusion of Atlantis’s final flight on July 21, 2011. The U.S. has since relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.
In January 1997, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Tappet Brothers of NPR’sCar Talk, received an unusual phone call. A John from Houston wanted to pick their brains about the odd behavior of the government vehicle he was driving, and the car-savvy duo quickly realized he wasn’t talking about a car.
On the January 18th, 1997, episode of Car Talk, the Tappet Brothers chatted with this mysterious John, who described his issue over a very poor phone connection:
This was John Grunsfeld, who was, at the time, aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on a STS-81, a mission to Mir.
One recent book portraying the Space Race is *Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race * by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016); the film rights to the book were sold while Shetterly was still working on it. The 2016 film adaptation focuses on the early 1960s.
The term “computer”, in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant “one who computes”: a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. Astronomers in Renaissance times used that term about as often as they called themselves “mathematicians” for their principal work of calculating the positions of planets. They often hired a “computer” to assist them. For some men such as Johannes Kepler, assisting a scientist in computation was a temporary position until they moved on to greater advancements.
During its over nine and a half years of service, NASA’s Kepler space telescope observed 530,506 stars and detected 2,662 planets. It was retired in October 2018.
Minnesota Twins outfielder Max Kepler, a German native whose parents were professional ballroom dancers, has hit home runs in 5 consecutive at bats off Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer, a major league record.
South African guitarist and singer Trevor Rabin has been an on-and-off member of the progressive rock group Yes since the early 1980s. Rabin’s song “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which appeared on the 1983 Yes album 90125, turned out to be Yes’s highest-charting single in the U.S., hitting #1 in January, 1984.
Rabin is also a prolific composer of motion picture scores, including the music for Armageddon, Remember the Titans, and National Treasure.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940, was the first novel by the American author Carson McCullers. McCullers was just 23 at the time of publication. The book is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the state of Georgia. A movie based on the book was released in 1968. The film starred Alan Arkin and introduced Sandra Lee. Both Arkin and Lee received Academy Award nominations for their performances.
Hunter S. Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. He often remarked: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson.
In 1965, Hunter S. Thompson was asked by the editors of The Nation to do a story on the Hell’s Angels. That article led to a book deal; Thompson spent almost a year with the Angels before he wrote the book, which was published in 1966.
Two years later, Thompson was covering Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign for Rolling Stone. One day during the campaign, Nixon asked Thompson to ride with him to the next stop, because Nixon wanted to talk football, and Thompson was purportedly the only journalist who knew anything about football.
Hunter S. Thompson was undoubtedly the only person who rode with both the Hell’s Angels and with Richard Nixon.
The National Archives’s most-requested photographic reprint is that of the Dec. 21, 1970 Oval Office meeting between President Richard M. Nixon and rock star Elvis Presley.
Nixon was President when Apollo 11 landed on the moon fifty years ago.
At this time fifty years ago today, Apollo 11 had just crossed the equigravisphere, the point where the moon’s gravitational attraction equals that of the earth
Apollo 11 Timeline
(all times PDT: hrs, day & date)
Wed 16 July 1969
➤ 0632: launch, liftoff of Apollo 11
➤ 0633: Mach 1 achieved
➤ 0635: Stage II ignition
➤ 0641: Stage III ignition (S-IVB)
➤ 0643: Earth orbit insertion, Stage III ignition cutoff
➤ 0916: Stage III TLI burn ignition
➤ 0922: Stage III TLI burn cutoff, velocity >24,000 MPH
➤ 0922: TLI achieved, translunar injection – they’re on their way to the moon!
➤ 0956: CSM docs with LM, command service module, lunar module
➤ 1113: S-IVB maneuver to lunar slingshot
Thu 17 July 1969
➤ 0917: midcourse correction (3-sec burn)
Fri 18 July 1969
➤ 1402: Armstrong and Aldrin enter LM for initial inspection (for approx 2½ hrs)
➤ 2012: crossing the equigravisphere, the point where the moon’s gravitational attraction equals that of the earth