Kottke:
On July 20, 1969, 49 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, took a walk, and returned safely to Earth a few days later. And the whole thing was broadcast live on television screens around the world.
For the 40th anniversary of the landing in 2009, I put together a page where you can watch the original CBS News coverage of Walter Cronkite reporting on the Moon landing and the first Moon walk, synced to the present-day time. Just open this page in your browser and the coverage will start playing at the proper time.
If you want to experience it the way “those old folks did”, start watching at 4:10pm ET this afternoon.
I’m not THAT old. (I watched this live when I was 11).
One thing that kind of makes me sad is that my generation, the folks older than I and the people a few years younger are the only ones to have seen people explore outer space. I love all the science that’s been done via Cassini, the Mars missions and more… but there’s something special about seeing humans set foot on the Moon and I would imagine it would be even more special to see us walk on Mars. To see us reach out in the Gemini and Apollo missions and then fall back and lose our nerve is… sad.
I remember it well. We were on summer vacation at my grandmother’s in Titusville, PA–boring as all heck for a 13 year old, with only black-and-white TV and 3 channels (although one channel, amazingly, showed miniature golf tournaments?!?) Anyhoo, we kids went to bed that fateful evening, then my parents woke us up at what seemed like 3AM to watch the landing, the steps down the ladder, and hear the well-chosen words “one small step for man…”