Neil Armstrong, the first human being to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 11 space flight on July 20, 1969, has died.
For some reason this news appeared on my Arsebook just today. Being an idiot, I didn’t check the dates. This is what happens when you don’t watch the TV news, kiddies.
Boing Boing observed that on Tuesday 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon.
In the comments, this anonymous lament:
On this date last year, I was in a check out lane at a drugstore, filling out a check when the friendly teenage clerk volunteered the date.
I replied “Thanks, but I know this one. Big Day in History.”
The nervous look I got in return made me pause. I asked her if she knew what had occurred, and she stammered “No Idea”. I asked her if she’d ever heard of “One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind”?
“No.”
How about “The Eagle Has Landed”?
“No.”
“Neil Armstrong”?
“Who?”
I told her that on this date, forty years ago, man first set foot on the moon. She stared at me for a few seconds and then burst out “Get OUTTA Here! We ain’t been to no MOON. You CRAZY!”
Randall Munroe’s cartoon uses the moon landing as an example, and unfortunately the actual comments are just as bad.
People these days. They just want to be Right, even if they’re not even wrong.
Literalist consumeroid cattle, trampling god, history, family, even reality into the ground as they race to their slaughterhouse Paradise.
Sometimes I think there’s a conspiracy to keep people earthbound in both mind and body.
That, or people really are that small-minded and desperate for some, any, authority.
(Originally posted 21 July 2010)
A list of neat trivia about the moon, along with some wonderful moon photos and snarky comments.
A list of neat trivia about the moon, along with some wonderful moon photos and snarky comments.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, I wanna talk about this because I want to.
This is what modern US schooling does to children. There’s more to the Internet than Facebook, pornography, and captioned cat pictures you know.
Now, you ever notice how when astronauts go onto other planets the sky (universe) is always black? So, if there were life on other planets, for example, their sky would always be black .
The reason for that is because in space there isn’t enough gas for light scattering to occur. [Source] [NASA] [And a third]
Also, when astronauts “went” onto the moon, some placed a flag into the surface of the moon.
- How can you place a stick, whether it be plastic, metal or steel, into a huge, hard rock?
The moon isn’t a solid rock: From The University of Tennessee website: The Moon is coverered with a gently rolling layer of powdery soil with scattered rocks that is called the regolith; it is made from debris blasted out of the Lunar craters by the meteor impacts that created them. Each well-preserved Lunar crater is surrounded by a sheet of ejected material called the ejecta blanket.
- Wouldn’t the lack of gravity cause the flag to float away?
The moon has enough mass to have its own gravity well, roughly 1/6th that of Earth.
Just wondering.
Wondering is nice, but eventually you have to do research like I did.
More Ecclescraft crap! This time I’m back in Noirland at spectacular Port Apollo. This time my microphone was picked up for some reason, so it’s Eccles uncut, half-cut, and flatulent.
Boing Boing observed that on Tuesday 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon.
In the comments, this anonymous lament:
On this date last year, I was in a check out lane at a drugstore, filling out a check when the friendly teenage clerk volunteered the date.
I replied “Thanks, but I know this one. Big Day in History.”
The nervous look I got in return made me pause. I asked her if she knew what had occurred, and she stammered “No Idea”. I asked her if she’d ever heard of “One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind”?
“No.”
How about “The Eagle Has Landed”?
“No.”
“Neil Armstrong”?
“Who?”
I told her that on this date, forty years ago, man first set foot on the moon. She stared at me for a few seconds and then burst out “Get OUTTA Here! We ain’t been to no MOON. You CRAZY!”
Randall Munroe’s cartoon uses the moon landing as an example, and unfortunately the actual comments are just as bad.
People these days. They just want to be Right, even if they’re not even wrong.
Literalist consumeroid cattle, trampling god, history, family, even reality into the ground as they race to their slaughterhouse Paradise.
Sometimes I think there’s a conspiracy to keep people earthbound in both mind and body.
That, or people really are that small-minded and desperate for some, any, authority.
The fuckwits of Facebook seem to think my account’s been hacked. Their “Checkpoint” system is buggy and biased toward people with good memories of what they last saw on their feeds.
Maybe it’s time that stupid site and I parted ways.
In thirty years I’ll be myself in early 2009.
Hmm… Apparently I get a sex change, change my name to Margaret and become the first woman doctor in New Zealand.
This unfinished story will probably never be finished. It started out as an idea for a “dark science fiction” series, ripping off all manner of sources.
If anyone wants to throw large sums of money into putting this thing on screen (yeah, right), let me know.
