Did you watch the Moon landing, live?

[Archae]

Back on July 20, 1969?

I did.

I was 9 years old, totally space-obsessed, and I stayed up all night watching them.

[lunasun]

1. Yes with my dad one of my memories of him

He bought some glossy photos they hawked somewhere the next day
What excitement
Remember when folks looked to the future with confidence ?

[Lochloosa]

2. Yes. I was 12. My father worked for GE at the time. He was on the team.

[shenmue]

3. My Mom and Dad did.

They were newlyweds. (They're still married.)

[kentauros]

4. Yes, I did.

Considering, too, that we lived in Nassau Bay at the time, with all the NASA-JSC engineers and astronauts all around us. Kind of hard to avoid the news-media everywhere, too

[GP6971]

5. I did

was 19 and it was my day off. A great moment in history.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. If you were in the U.S, you probably didn't have to stay up for the landing...

... but you might've had to stay up for the walk. I know I did.

[2naSalit]

7. I did

I watched by myself, I was in my mid-teens. I remember feeling like I was watching something so advanced, I remembered the first manned orbit of the planet years before. I kept going out in the yard and looking at the sky every few minutes.

My dad worked for a contractor (who is now a component of Lockheed-Martin) at the time as an engineer.

[sdfernando]

8. Yes...It was my 8th birthday!

We normally didn't get to stay up late, but Mom and Dad made an exception.

[lastlib]

129. (Happy Birthday!) eom

[sdfernando]

140. Thanks

[spanone]

9. watched it with my future and still wife

and her dearly departed dad

[Ilsa]

10. yes. nt.

[haele]

11. yes, My parents made sure we saw history.

It was such an achievement for the world. My little brother thought it was an early sixth birthday present.

Haele

[Iggo]

12. Yep. I was 7.

My dad made sure I didn't miss it.

[madamesilverspurs]

13. Yeppers.

We watched on a small black and white TV in a shop at Ports o' Call, about twelve of us standing there gaping, no one saying a word. After, we all went outside and there was half the population of Los Angeles looking up at the sky.

[Uncle Joe]

14. Yes, I did, it was an exciting time.

Thanks for the thread, Archae.

[SeattleVet]

15. Oh, hell, yeah!

Glued to the TV for every launch (and whatever other coverage they had available) from the beginning of Mercury and all through the Apollo program. Jules Bergman was able to explain things extremely well, and knew what questions to ask when necessary.

I can still get a lump in my throat when I look up at a beautiful full moon and think about all that we had accomplished, and how we basically abandoned it all.

[Turbineguy]

16. Yes.

I was working in the Apollo Program.

Along with about one million others.

[Blue_In_AK]

72. My dad, too.

Were you in Houston?

[Turbineguy]

120. California

I worked for a small company that made electrical connectors.

[edbermac]

17. Yes

And I hope to live long enough to see the first Mars landing

[WillyT]

18. Yes...

[kairos12]

19. Yes, I was living in Houston.

[Greg K]

20. I did, but I was 2.5!

I don't remember seeing it, though I believe I did see it live. But I do somewhat remember seeing later Apollo flights and Skylab being launched.

[MiniMe]

21. Reality TV at it's best. And it was during the summer, so I didn't have to worry about getting up

early the next day. I was almost 12. Watched with my parents. All in black and white, we didn't have a color TV at the time.

[kimbutgar]

22. I was in Chicago visiting my grandmother for the summer

I remember being in her livingroom watching on a black and white tv. My cousin who was 9 and I was 13 watched it on tv and I remember it was so exciting that man was on the moon. The wonderment of science getting a man on the moon.

Nowadays science is bad and dreamers are attacked my the schemers.

Please please people get off your asses and vote in November.

[Rhiannon12866]

23. Yes, and I was at summer camp.

My friend and I were just in the right place at the right time. The camp nurse had a TV and we were near her cabin, so she told us to hurry and come in to watch it. It was just good luck...

[MohRokTah]

24. Yep. eom

[HeiressofBickworth]

25. My daughter has the scar to prove it

She was 1 1/2 at the time, just toddling around. As Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon surface, she fell against the coffee table and cut her forehead open. I called her doctor's office to rush her in for stitches. The asked how badly she was bleeding (it had nearly stopped but was a gaping wound). When I described it to them, they asked if I could wait about a half hour to bring her in. When I got there, they were referring to her as the "moon walk laceration". I reminded her today that it is the 45th anniversary of the scar on her forehead.

[jaysunb]

61. Priceless ! n/t

[littlemissmartypants]

26. With my Granny. She was more of a mother to me

Than my mother. I miss her everyday. She was the biggest and best intellectual influence in my life. Black and white TV. Like it was yesterday.

Thanks for your post.

Love, Peace and Shelter.

[Tommy2Tone]

27. Yes I did

I was at a dinner theater. During the second act they rolled out televisions and we watched the landing. I could barely believe what I was watching.

[SheilaT]

28. Oh yes!

I was twenty years old and got off work about 3pm, went home and turned on my tiny black and white TV. Saw the landing and kept on watching. They (the decision makers at NASA) decided to move up the first walk on the moon by several hours, although as it was I stayed up much too late to watch it. I had to be at work at 6:30 the next morning, and I was falling asleep in front of the TV and didn't really see that much.

I lived in the DC area at the time and worked at National Airport. Even after all these years I cannot get over the fact that we saw all that live.

[alfredo]

29. I was sitting in a closed down mess hall in Kagnew Station.

The radio broadcast was being piped into the diningroom and kitchen. I had a month left in the service. I missed all the "fun" of the drought, famine, and kidnappings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagnew_Station

[cascadiance]

142. I was also overseas in Ankara, Turkey at the time... My dad listened to it on short wave I believe

I think it was broadcast on Voice of America, but he got it on some station then. I was obsessed with it then too, and got my visual jollies watching 2001: A Space Odyssey a few times then, and making the model spacecraft of the movie and the lunar LEM then. Dad also bought this 6 LP set of record albums that documented the Apollo 11 odyssey.



We didn't miss out on the "fun" of kidnappings though, as we had our share in Turkey a couple of years when there was a state coup and a bunch of bombing attacks and kidnappings, including my 7th grade teacher's boyfriend, who fortunately escaped his kidnappers.

[freshwest]

30. Same here, up all night, but I'd been watching all the shots since Shepherd. Lived near NASA and my

cousin worked there. A long night full of suspense, wonder and national unity.

For those who say it never happened, was a fake, etc., sorry to burst your CT. Unless a city of three million was having a shared hallucination lasting for over a decade, no, it wasn't fake.

It took years of high level science advance and technological innovations to make it happen.

In our post scientific common culture, full of fantasies, some will believe anything.

It was real and it was beautiful.

[Still Sensible]

31. I was 14. Watched it in our den in Sierra Vista, AZ

My grandmother and great aunt were visiting from West Virginia. We had just got cable TV in our town, but at that time all that meant was the three network channels out of Tucson, the Atlanta station and three indys out of L.A.. If the landing had been a few months earlier we would have suffered watching on intermittent over-the-air signals from Tucson.

[TeamPooka]

32. yes

[steve2470]

33. yep age 10 nt

[catrose]

34. yes eom

[1monster]

35. No. I was in summer camp in the Wilds of West Virginia. No television, no raido,

no telephone.

I was 13 and didn't even know it happened...

[House of Roberts]

36. Yep.

Twelve years old.

There certainly wasn't anything else going to be on TV back then. All the networks carried it, and if we had cable it was all local stations and maybe WTBS.

[airplaneman]

37. I have a funny story about this

I was 15 and at a friends house. The family were hard core Star Trekkie's. As the "one small step for man....... speech was being made - The family I was with screamed and yelled about how the moon landing had interrupted the Star Trek show and how pissed they all were. Even I at age 15 could see the irony in what they were doing.
-Airplane

[zeemike]

38. Nope, I had to leave for work just as it was starting.

But I listened on the radio while driving, and when I got to the gard shack the gard had the radio on just as they landed and I got to hear it at least.
But when I got home that night, I got to watch the first moon walk live...that was a thrill for me being a great fan of science fiction...I remember thinking, Damn they have actually done it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. Yup. Including the upsidedown picture.

I'm still pissed Nixon's name is on the plaque considering he killed the program because he considered all that "space stuff" to be a "Kennedy thing" and he HATED the entire Kennedy family.

[Wolf Frankula]

40. Yes on TV

We cheered ourselves hoarse.

Wolf

[Bavorskoami]

41. Yes, it was the 21st of July where I was

I was in the Army in Germany so it was already July 21 there when Armstrong step off that ladder. I stayed up almost all night and watched it in the day room of my barracks in Herzogenaurach near Nürnberg. In the morning I was being transferred out to a site on the Czech border. When I got to the village where I was to be stationed a local greeted me by pointing to the sky, saying "Armstrong - Armstrong" and smiling with a wide-eyed look of amazement.

[Spazito]

42. Yes...

I was working at a Dairy Queen at the time and the boss brought out a television so we could all watch the landing, we, employees and customers, were totally enthralled. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing during three pivotal events in history: the assassination of JFK, the first moon landing and the 911 attack.

[MarianJack]

43. Yep!

I was 14 and watched with my mom, her boyfriend and my uncle on a hot as hell night in Collingdale, PA. One of the greatest editorial cartoons was published a day or 2 later when they were on their way home. It showed the Earth & the Moon with President Kennedy's image superimposed and saluting the men of Apollo 11.

I was so happy to see the video earlier today on Facebook of Buzz Aldrin (who has always been my favorite Apollo 11 crew member) knocking the likely teabagger conspiracy but who called him a liar right on his ass!

PEACE!

[Historic NY]

44. Yes, my aunt had a relative that worked at Grumman ...

on the LEM - Lunar Excursion Module.

[No Vested Interest]

45. I was a young mother, and got my daughters up from bed to come see it.

Don't know how much they got out of it, but they were there.
I let the baby boys sleep in.

[Stonepounder]

46. Yes. I was a camp counselor that summer.

At a camp in Southern Ohio. We let all the campers stay up and brought the TV out of the counselors lounge and set it up in the lodge so we could all watch.

[MannyGoldstein]

47. Phantoms of phosphor. Ghosts.

Bounding about on another stellar body, I watched amazed. A little tyke, but I knew what was up.

They did it.

[yourout]

48. you will love this.....http://wechoosethemoon.org/

http://wechoosethemoon.org/

[IDemo]

49. I was 12, at the UCLA diabetic summer camp

Our troop had just returned to the lodge on a rainy horseback ride when one of the more colorful camp counselors (these were all UCLA students) burst out the front door waving his arms and yelling "they landed!"

This was just two months after my father's death in a plane crash, and he had worked in aerospace and was a big fan of the space program. I wished strongly he had survived to see that day.

[Kablooie]

50. My dad went out and rented a color TV for us to watch.

I guess the announcer's faces were colorful.

[trackfan]

51. Yes.

I was also 9 years old, and into it big time.

[AgingAmerican]

52. I was 8

We went to my grandparents house to watch it. I remember the picture was so bad they looked like grey globs bouncing around in front of the lunar LEM. The audio was perfect though.

I remember the adults were all speechless.

[SeattleVet]

87. The picture was so bad because of compatibility problems with some of the relay stations.

See http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_11_mission/hl_apollo11.html for a full explanation of how we managed to get *any* TV images at all from this mission!

[eShirl]

101. There was a movie about this a few years ago

The Dish (2000)
A remote Australian antenna, populated by quirky characters, plays a key role in the first Apollo moon landing.

Director:
Rob Sitch
Writers:
Santo Cilauro (conceived and written by), Tom Gleisner (conceived and written by), 2 more credits »
Stars:
Sam Neill, Billy Mitchell, Roz Hammond | See full cast and crew »
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/

[Bluenorthwest]

116. I love and adore that film.

The Dish. Sam Neil is great in it.

[pangaia]

53. Yes, I was 25

and in an orchestra rehearsal.
We were rehearsing the Berlioz ROMAN CARNIVAL OVERTURE.

A couple people had brought TVs to the rehearsal.

[Zen Democrat]

54. Yes. I worked at Johnson Space Center. Went home and watched TV all night.

Everyone was excited that the first word spoken from the moon was "Houston." Everyone was crazy excited, period.

[Crabby Appleton]

55. Nope, I was in Vietnam

but I heard about it. I had just turned 20 the month before.

[pinboy3niner]

80. I watched it in Vietnam

We gathered around a TV at Long Binh to watch the TV broadcast that was recorded in Manila and then flown to AFVN-TV in Vietnam to air hours after the landing.

[B Calm]

150. The OP asks if you saw it live.

In the navy we saw recordings too.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

56. Why, yes

watched it in a coffee house in San Francisco. I remember it was COLD outside.

[MADem]

57. Yes, I did. We splurged on a COLOR TV for the occasion!

It wasn't a very big TV, it was what passed for a "portable" (like the size of a giant microwave oven) back then, but we were thrilled to have it and to watch--we didn't want to miss a minute of it.

[DeSwiss]

58. Yes.

- And it was also the second time I saw Walter Cronkite cry. This time he was happy.

[missmo1951]

59. I was 18

Have not forgotten, will never forget.

[jaysunb]

60. Yup....transfixed. n/t

[Kennah]

62. I did not. I was two.

[Dustlawyer]

63. Yup! Drank and ate Tang!

[WillowTree]

64. But of course!!

[ThoughtCriminal]

65. Oh yes

Dad was a NASA scientist. Never missed a launch, landing or splashdown.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

66. Yes, in a Houston burb!

I remember Jules Bergman explaining everything.

But I was not right near Mission Control, like kentauros.

We were all so hopeful and proud for America and the world.

Neil deGrasse Tyson rails against the fact that 1/2 of 1 percent of our tax dollars go to space exploration, and that it should at least be 1 percent.

I saw Buzz Aldrin this afternoon on MSNBC and he said basically the same thing. That we need to put more than 1/2 of 1 percent of our budget into space exploration.

But then we have politicians who don't understand science and are proud of that. They cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider in Waxahachie, and that could have been employing lots of people who would have doing in America what CERN in Switzerland is doing now. And remember when John McCain couldn't understand why a planetarium machine made by the Carl Zeiss optical company needed 2 million dollars and he compared it to an "overhead projector"???

[jen63]

124. The fact that McCain

spouts that crap as a Naval Academy grad just straight pisses me off.

I remember watching the moonlanding at 5, on our little black and white. I've never forgotten the nuance of picture and sound. Thank heaven I was the oldest!

[Brother Buzz]

67. Nope

I believe I was on a road trip somewhere in the Pacific northwest, however the details are a little sketchy in my mind other then the memory that I had a grand time.

[7962]

68. Yes, on a small black and white tv with the whole family. nt

[pinto]

69. Yep. And we went outside to look at the moon for a Earth reference point of view.

[MFM008]

70. I was 10

I had spent the day delivering Avon for my mom then went next door where my friend lived, we watched a few minutes as the craft passed over the surface of the moon what seemed endless amount. I thought...... I should watch this, i know its important.. I think I saw NA step on the moon and then we went to her room and looked at Tiger Beats. A wasted life lol.

[Blue_In_AK]

71. Yes.

I was 22. It was a very exciting time for us. My father had worked at NASA since 1962 as a contract negotiator for the Apollo program. He had just retired earlier that summer and was on vacation in Colorado where I lived at the time. My memory is kind of fuzzy, but I think that window of time was after his retirement and before they moved to Alaska later that year. Anyway, I remember all of us around the TV so excited and proud of our little part in this historic moment.

The space program was very good to our family. My brothers and I have quite a bit of memorabilia that our dad had collected during his time at the Space Agency.

[KinMd]

73. Yes, we were at a rented beach cottage

[Tikki]

74. About 5 GIs one whom was my husband and I watched it on our tiny B&W TV

While we were stationed in Louisiana.

We all cheered, loudly.

Tikki
Ps..it was totally the real thing.

[davidpdx]

75. I wasn't born yet

That happened a few years before I graced the world. I would have liked to seen it.

[randome]

122. And we stopped the Moon program when you were born? Just a coincidence? I think not.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[mike_c]

76. yes....

eom

[Sognefjord]

77. Yes, I was 24 and I was watching a B&W TV in a cheap hotel lobby drinking warm Mateus.

Thought it was great.

[proReality]

78. Watched with my fiancee

and friends. I was 23...seems like yesterday.

[mbperrin]

79. I did, I was 17, and we were promised that it would be turned into a national holiday!

I want my national holiday!

[KauaiK]

81. Yup...I was a young woman w/ a baby girl....

[Grammy23]

136. I was 20 and had just given birth to a son on June 5th.

As the broadcast came on, I sat on a footstool and held my baby boy in my lap with his head facing the TV. I was so excited and remember "telling" him that we were witnessing history. Not that I thought he would remember it....he was only 6 weeks old. But I thought it was cool that we could see it right in our living room. I have since reminded him of what I did. Witnessing history the way we can now with TV, internet and all is truly remarkable!

[defacto7]

82. Yep...

and everything else of the moon mission my Dad would let me stay up to watch. I practically camped at the TV. I was 10.

[dballance]

83. Sure did. On our B&W TV that had rabbit ears! /nt

[90-percent]

84. An interesting point about the landing

And this is from memory and I MAY BE WRONG

The available recorded pictures of the landing were taken from a camera filming a monitor. Which is why they're so grainy. There once was more original crisper film but somebody though they weren't important enough to save so the clear original film is lost to history.

DO I HAVE THIS RIGHT?

-90% Jimmy

[rudolph the red]

85. I did, I was 5 years old and

I remember sitting on the floor in front of the tv watching it. We were in Kokomo, IN at the time, visiting my grandparents.

[delrem]

86. Yes. It's too bad there was such poor followup. It all went to the MIC, instead.

Piss all went to NASA.
It's amazing what was done with that (relative) pittance, though.
Good on NASA.
It's time for the USA to again think about peaceful endeavours like that, which enrich humankind as a whole.
Except, of course, that the USA is way too in debt, way too invested in the MIC, and US MSM is way too invested in profiting off it.

[Tommymac]

88. Yup - playing with my Major Matt Mason astronaut toys in front of our bw tv

Will never forget that Sunday. Was living near Wash DC with my family, and got to stay up past 9 to watch the actual moonwalk. I also remember my dad taking movies of the tv screen during the landing and walk with our super 8mm movie camera - came out fairly well for the technology of the time - we used to watch them all the time as kids, but alas they have been lost over the intervening years.

[markpkessinger]

89. Me, too -- I was 8 n/t

[deafskeptic]

90. I barely remember the moon landing.

I remember there was a great deal of excitement in the living room and something unusual seemed to be happening on TV. So I looked at it and saw a landscape that looked very barren and a guy bouncing around on it. He had a suit similar to what what astronauts wore.

Communication was difficult at best as I did not know sign language then. In those days, deaf children were not allowed to learn sign language. Not many people know this but deaf can only lipread 30% of what is on the lips of others. You can't lipread voiceovers.

It wasn't until many years later that I found out the significance of this event. For the record, I was 3 years old going on 4 at the time.

[randome]

109. I often wondered about the accuracy and totality of lip reading.

Interesting bit of info there. Thanks.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Where do uncaptured mouse clicks go?[/center][/font][hr]

[Daphne08]

91. Yes. I had just turned twenty

and I watched with my parents and my brothers (since I was home from college for the summer). I remember sitting on the floor in front of the television set.

Almost everyone I knew was watching.

It was such an exciting time.

[eridani]

92. Yes, I did. I was 23. My roommate and I didn't have a TV, so we--

--went over to her parents' place to watch. A great thing to watch, especially after all those asassinations the previous year.s

[Frustratedlady]

93. I not only watched the live landing, but worked

in engineering for a company which made resistors for the program. Proud moment.

[Populist_Prole]

94. No, I was too young

About 6 years old, and had only a peripherally informed view of what was going on. At the time I remember some talk of it and some some vague memory of media coverage.

I wish I were more aware then of how big an event it was.

[bearssoapbox]

95. Yes, I was 14.

We had moved into the house that my folks bought in April of 1969. Finally a permanent home. We moved to Ohio from Rapid City, South Dakota in the spring of 1964 and I attended 4 schools in 5 years.

I watched most of the day, the rest of family watched different parts at different times but I watched it all and was up all night long.

The rest of the family went to bed not long after midnight.

I had gotten a portable real-to-real tape recorder for Christmas a couple of years earlier and I bought 2 boxes (12 reels each, 1/2 hr. per reel) of tape. I used them all and still have them. The last time I heard them, 2009, they sounded pretty good and they don't look like they've degraded since then.

I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to get them re-recorded on a disc or something.

Those were some amazing times. Too bad we quit.

[randome]

114. Get them re-recorded then sell the originals on EBay.

Or, if you're not inclined to sell, at least make sure they are as well-preserved as possible.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[dipsydoodle]

96. Memories of another day

I worked in a tv repair workshop then so we had adequate viewing facilities.

[Major Hogwash]

97. Yeah. That was back when being an American was really cool.

The "Race for Space" in the 60s was awesome.

[mnhtnbb]

98. Yes. I was 18, working a summer job before starting college.

Hired as a relief nursing unit clerk at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla. 7-3:30 shift.
Floated to whichever floor needed me because the permanent person was
on vacation.

There was a TV in the lounge area of each of the nursing floors. People who
didn't have a reason to be in patient rooms--where all the TV's were on--
were gathered to see the landing.

[WinkyDink]

99. Yes. It shared the headlines with Chappaquiddick.

[raccoon]

100. Yes. I think that was the high point of the American Empire. nt

[catbyte]

102. I did. I was 14. I watched it with my parents & grandparents.

They're all gone now, sigh.

[intaglio]

103. Oh, yes

I thought it would be only 10 years before the first colonies

[randome]

108. Everyone thought that. 2001: A Space Odyssey reflected that 'certainty'.

I was 10 and watched the Moon landing. Also space obsessed at that time. Who wasn't?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Where do uncaptured mouse clicks go?[/center][/font][hr]

[Kaleva]

104. Yes but later fell asleep and missed the walk.

[roguevalley]

105. yep. mama and dad felt it was important enough to put out the word. grown kids you know. :D

[unhappycamper]

106. Nope.

That was during my first trip to Nam.

[quaker bill]

107. yes, and the launch of it at the cape

I have the mission patch.

[cpwm17]

110. No, I was 8 and our family had no TV

Our father didn't want a TV for himself, so us four kids had no TV at the time. The only news event from the 1960's I remember is the 1968 presidential election on election night. I spent that night at my Grandmother's house and I remember that election well.

I don't think I was aware of the landing. Our incurious parents didn't talk about it and I remember no mention of it at our school. My oldest sister has said she listened to it on the radio.

Soon after I was very aware of the moon missions and I remember sitting on a neighbor's porch listening to a neighbor's TV wishing I could watch the moon mission playing on their TV.

I the early 1970's our Grandmother gave us an old B&W TV so I got to watch a number of Apollo missions.

[WinkyDink]

118. No television in 1969?!

[cpwm17]

133. Yes, no TV until one was given to us in about 1971

except for an old TV we had briefly that we were given in 1968. So I do have some memories of TV shows in that time period.

We kids desperately wanted a TV. My father had plenty of money for his own hobbies but conveniently he couldn't be bothered to get us a TV.

[scarletlib]

111. Yes--20 yrs of age

Last edited Sun Jul 20, 2014, 08:53 AM - Edit history (2)

I was 20 yrs old. Stayed up while everyone else went to bed. I wish we were still out there exploring on Mars now. Looks like I will never get to take that trip off planet that I hoped for back then.

[peacebird]

112. Yes, with my dad

[BumRushDaShow]

113. Yes - Dad dragged us outta bed

and I was sitting on the steps looking. I was 7.

Eventually watched a bunch of moonshots at school whenever they happened during the day during a school year.

Also remember the National Geographic Moon maps and listening to the plastic "Moon Record" also in the magazine (we were subscribers and I still am).

[llmart]

115. Yes, I did.

I was 19 years old and had just gotten married that Saturday, so we were sort of "doing other things" on the 20th, but got up in the middle of the night to watch it on the tiny black and white TV that a friend had loaned us. In some ways it seems like yesterday, in others it seems like a lifetime ago. What an amazing time to come of age! I remember how our teachers would roll in the TV's every time there was some sort of space event. That was back when the country cared about our image in the world. Now most of what used to be NASA functions are privatized. I'm really glad I grew up when I did. They were interesting times to say the least.

[Enthusiast]

117. Yes, I did.

[sufrommich]

119. Yes, family gathered around the tube.

I was 13.Very exciting.

[jwirr]

121. Yes

[PCIntern]

123. 16 y.o. then...

still amazed that it was done.

[KatyaR]

125. Yes. My mom was in the hospital at the time,

and my dad and I stopped at my cousins' house for dinner before we went home. I remember us sitting in the living room, eating dinner on TV trays, while we watched it. I can still see it in my mind's eye. It was an amazing night. I had just turned 12 the month before.

[Bluzmann57]

126. Yes I did

At age 11, I was outside playing when my mom called me inside and told me that "This is what you have been waiting for!" And it was. It was, and is, one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed, even with a fuzzy black and white picture.

[Go Vols]

127. Yes

[Igel]

128. Absolutely.

I was 10.

Was ready to scream to be allowed to stay up to watch them. Father finally relented without too much screaming or yelling on either side. He didn't stay up. My mother thought it a horrible waste of money that could be spent on social programs to help poor women. (That's the only government program she cared about--any that helped poor women.)

Totally space obsessed? Absolutely. Right down to the truly yucky astronaut-food-in-a-tube that you could buy.

[lastlib]

130. Yes! Didn't miss a minute of it!

I was not quite 12, but parents let me stay up as late as it went so I could see all of it. I was a bit of a space nut (missed very few, if any, launches), and was pretty well plugged in to the coverage. I can still see in my mind's eye Walter Cronkite's facial expression as he summarized the landing by Eagle.

[femmocrat]

131. Yes, I watched it with my dad and brother.

My dad gave us each a can of beer to celebrate.... although we were teenagers! LOL

I love that memory of him in his lounge chair. He was as excited as a kid.

[SteveG]

132. The summer after my freshman year at college

I was visiting at the apartment of my girlfriend who was working at the beach that summer. we had a party, wine and cheese, beer, and watched the landing as it happened.

[ancianita]

134. Yes. I was in a motel in Albany, GA, outside Fort Gordon, with my husband fresh out of boot camp

and about to settle into his officer assignment at the fort. We propped our month-old daughter on the bed in front of the TV as we all three watched the landing. We promised her we'd tell her what she saw someday.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

135. I saw it live on French television

I spent my first year of college in France at the American College In Paris. The entire country (and I imagine most of Europe, too) came to a complete standstill to watch. Before the landing, I think the most dramatic moment (for me and for the French TV journalists covering i t)came about a day or so before. The astronauts had a camera inside the space craft and we could see their smiling faces. Suddenly, they turned the camera toward a porthole and you could see a bright, shining sphere. The French journalists shouted "LA TERRE!!!" (the Earth).

[LiberalLoner]

137. Yes. It was a week before my 8th birthday.

Such an amazing accomplishment. I was so proud to be an American that day.

[phylny]

138. I did, and I remember thinking, "One day I'll tell my kids I saw this live on TV." n/t

[RebelOne]

139. Yes, I saw it as it happened on TV.

I was 29 years old. I immediately called my mother and said, "See, I told you we would get to the moon." When I was a kid she would say that I was reading too much science fiction when I told her then that we would someday get to outer space.

[burrowowl]

141. Yes! I was 22

Kept running outside to look at the moon. Mind was blown!

[TwilightGardener]

143. Nope. I was a fetus.

[Skittles]

144. yes, in England

I remember a classmate's father, Major Mosch, telling us in school how momentous an event it would be.........I was so enormously proud of my country

[pokerfan]

145. Yes

I was just a kid and watched it with my parents and my little brother. My favorite photo of Neil Armstrong:



(Aldrin took this photo of Armstrong in the cabin after the completion of the EVA on July 21, 1969.)

[Thor_MN]

146. I was 6. My sisters fell asleep, I watched until after they stepped on the moon.

Mom and Dad popped a bottle of champagne and let us have a sip. My sisters promptly went back to sleep.

[MadrasT]

147. Yes I did. My mom made a big deal out of how important it was.

I was pretty small, but I sure do remember it.

[Angleae]

148. Probably not considering I was 2 years old at the time.

[B Calm]

149. No, I was in Valletta Malta in the US Navy.

[LeftishBrit]

151. Yes, I did. Possibly the first 'world event' I consciously watched.

I remember the thrill of it all; how strangely the spacemen walked because of the reduced gravity; and my dad running out into the garden with the telescope to see if the moon would look different, even though he knew it wouldn't!

[madokie]

152. I was in Vietnam that day

Been there a month so I missed it

[tblue37]

153. Yes. I was 19. nt

[Sancho]

154. I did..

I was 15.

[dhol82]

155. yes. middle of central park, new york

they had set up huge screens in the park. thousands of people there watching. it was one of those gee-whizz moments.