Get ready to remember where you were this coming Friday.

On this day in 1969: Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, to become the first manned space mission to land on the moon.

Tom Hanks new web series. If you scroll down to the audio clib at the bottom he does mention Ray.

http://www.scpr.org/programs/m...ty-yahoo-web-series/

This is what Ray was doing on this day in 1969:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szMEsu0FARU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1h8zASNgXk

What were you doing? I’ll go first…

I was fifteen years old and my father dropped a friend and I off at Zuma beach so we could spend the day body surfing and striking out with girls. The parents were so engrossed with the events unfolding on the TV they forgot to come and pick us up. These were the olden days before cell phone and the only pay-phone was broken so we were unable to call and ask “remember us?”
There was another group of people who had a 9” B&W TV. Everybody on the beach was huddled around watching one of the greatest achievements of humankind. The batteries on the TV eventually were drained. I took the initiative to pry open a corner of the fold-down door of the lifeguard station so we could plug the TV into a power outlet so we could watch Neil Armstrong make that one small step.

About that time the family realized their OOPS.

Ray was also walking out of the David Frost show in London...

I was seven years old, and tucked up in bed. It all happened too late for little kiddies on this side of the Atlantic

So, I don't remember the event itself, although I DO remember Apollo 12.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: philnic,

Hey, guys,

I want to first of all point out that precious Ray Bradbury proclaimed that this date, 43 years ago today -- July 20, 1969 -- was, in fact, the greatest night in the history of the world!

He declared that to David Frost. He always believed it with all his heart, and guess what? He was absolutely Right! Because on that day, as never before and never again, human history was actually cleft in two. Forevermore, events are seen as either before or after we set foot on another world. We are still just too close to the event to see it in that monumental perspective.

What was I doing? I was fifteen years old. I had waited very eagerly for this moment, since I was seven years old, when Kennedy set the Moon as our goal. So I was glued to the TV, at home with my family, trying to catch every single word and image.

Thanks, jkt, for posting those URL's. Those You Tube videos were made by someone at Comic-Con in 2009 when an audience viewed Ray's own DVD of his interview with Mike Wallace for CBS in London on July 20, 1969.

In that interview, Ray is in fine form, bless him! He's a good looking, well spoken, well prepared forty-nine year old visionary, proclaiming words that echo like thunder for the ages. He makes clear the second step in mankind's (i.e. Mr. Electrico's) quest for immortality. On July 20, 1969, we stepped onto the Moon. But immortality for all humanity will be no more a question, when we feel at home on a planet of another star. "When we do reach the nearest stars and settle there, we'll be at home in the universe," Ray told Mike Wallace and the listening hundreds of millions. "And then we won't have to ask ourselves the question of death ever again. We won't have to say why existence, why life, why anything. We will stop questioning..."

Many critics of space exploration don't see it -- or can't see it -- for what it must be. It's not a temporary stunt to briefly visit another world. This is the beginning of the migration of humanity beyond the Earth.

But Ray saw it. And he nailed the point home. Profoundly. Elegantly. For the ages. On July 20, 1969 -- forty-three years ago today!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mike Langford,

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Langford:
Hey, guys,

I want to first of all point out that precious Ray Bradbury proclaimed that this date, 43 years ago today -- July 20, 1969 -- was, in fact, the greatest night in the history of the world!

He declared that to David Frost. He always believed it with all his heart, and guess what? He was absolutely Right! Because on that day, as never before and never again, human history was actually cleft in two. Forevermore, events are seen as either before or after we set foot on another world. We are still just too close to the event to see it in that monumental perspective.

What was I doing? I was fifteen years old. I had waited very eagerly for this moment, since I was seven years old, when Kennedy set the Moon as our goal. So I was glued to the TV, at home with my family, trying to catch every single word and image.

Thanks, jkt, for posting those URL's. Those You Tube videos were made by someone at Comic-Con in 2009 when an audience viewed Ray's own DVD of his interview with Mike Wallace for CBS in London on July 20, 1969.

In that interview, Ray is in fine form, bless him! He's a good looking, well spoken, well prepared forty-nine year old visionary, proclaiming words that echo like thunder for the ages. He makes clear the second step in mankind's (i.e. Mr. Electrico's) quest for immortality. On July 20, 1969, we stepped onto the Moon. But immortality for all humanity will be no more a question, when we feel at home on a planet of another star. "When we do reach the nearest stars and settle there, we'll be at home in the universe," Ray told Mike Wallace and the listening hundreds of millions. "And then we won't have to ask ourselves the question of death ever again. We won't have to say why existence, why life, why anything. We will stop questioning..."

Many critics of space exploration don't see it -- or can't see it -- for what it must be. It's not a temporary stunt to briefly visit another world. This is the beginning of the migration of humanity beyond the Earth.

But Ray saw it. And he nailed the point home. Profoundly. Elegantly. For the ages. On July 20, 1969 -- forty-three years ago today!

That was my DVD they played at Comic-Con. Showing the clip was not planned, we were just lucky they had audio-video equipment available.

Well, John, thanks for providing the video and thanks for setting the record straight.

I was just going by the description at the bottom of the second YouTube video, which says, "Uploaded by faroukabad on Jul 30, 2009. Ray Bradbury is interviewed on the night of the first moon landing on the Walter Cronkite show. From Comic-con 2009, Ray's own DVD. Part 2 of 2" Perhaps you should add a comment to the YouTube posting.

But this video is a real treasure. It shows a great triumph of Ray's career -- to be able to share his truly profound views at such a moment in history and to such a wide global audience. And to have done all this after rebounding from the disappointment of the Frost broadcast. That's a heroic effort to comment on an heroic effort!

Is the video from your personal collection or is it commercially available?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Langford:
Well, John, thanks for providing the video and thanks for setting the record straight.

I was just going by the description at the bottom of the second YouTube video, which says, "Uploaded by faroukabad on Jul 30, 2009. Ray Bradbury is interviewed on the night of the first moon landing on the Walter Cronkite show. From Comic-con 2009, Ray's own DVD. Part 2 of 2" Perhaps you should add a comment to the YouTube posting.

But this video is a real treasure. It shows a great triumph of Ray's career -- to be able to share his truly profound views at such a moment in history and to such a wide global audience. And to have done all this after rebounding from the disappointment of the Frost broadcast. That's a heroic effort to comment on an heroic effort!

Is the video from your personal collection or is it commercially available?

Not available commercially, bummer.

quote:

jkt originally wrote:
Get ready to remember where you were this coming Friday.

Well, I'm a little late for the party, as it were, despite the heads-up, but here goes.
What I distinctly remember was my father shouting, "A man on the moon! A man on the moon! Can you believe it?!" We had our TV in kind of dinning room made into a den. He was sitting in front and to the left of the TV in a cherry wood chair with black vinyl covered cushonings. My six-and-a-half year self was standing to the right and behind him under the sheet-rock archway leading into the living room. Our family lived and grew in that house from 1964 to 1970 and I still have many memories of it. I pass by it occasionally. After the tornado of April 2011, I went to see if it was still there, as that area was one that was heavily hit. I wept. It is still there, repaired, but the pecan trees are gone.

July 20th is also the 37th anniversary of the VIKING I Mars Landing (1976). I remember watching it in black and white and still have my scrapbook of newspaper clippings following it and VIKING II as well. Here is an excerpt from one following the event:

From an article by Eleanor Hoover of the Los Angeles Times, Printed in The Tuscaloosa News, Headline: Dreams of other planets, other worlds die hard:

"Perhaps the first lesson underscored by Mars and the new age of space exploration it inauguates is that the possibilities are infinite. The second may be that the world is truly mysterious - a knowlege accepted now by scientist as well as poet and science fiction writer. A third may be humility. And the fourth may be, to use Sagan's gemlike phrase, that we are "starfolk."
The allusion is not merely literary, it is hard science as well. "It means," says Sagan, "that all atoms in the cosmos are the same. We know that now. All the atoms in use are literally made in the inside of the stars."
Sagan suggests man, Mars and the stars have a common destiny.
So does Bradbury who writes, "Am I trying to say that it is our genetics to go to Mars? Yes. We go there because the Universe terrifies us and we would solve that terror. We go there because death is a mystery and life an even bigger one. We go there because, as Ahab said, all this was rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before the oceans rolled."

I think both of these have been posted before:

A poem Ray Bradbury wrote about VIKING and Mars:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d...t-72157623362196151/

The Foreword he wrote to a special issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in October 2008:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic....pecial/bradbury-text

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Linnl,

I was seven and moving into this house where I still live. Unfortunately the excitement of the move canceled out all the buildup of the moon landing so I remember the buildup, but not the event itself. Memories of the rest of the day, but only a vague one of our parents trying to interest us in the events on TV.

quote:

From an article by Eleanor Hoover of the Los Angeles Times, Printed in The Tuscaloosa News, Headline: Dreams of other planets, other worlds die hard:

"Perhaps the first lesson underscored by Mars and the new age of space exploration it inauguates is that the possibilities are infinite. The second may be that the world is truly mysterious - a knowlege accepted now by scientist as well as poet and science fiction writer. A third may be humility. And the fourth may be, to use Sagan's gemlike phrase, that we are "starfolk."
The allusion is not merely literary, it is hard science as well. "It means," says Sagan, "that all atoms in the cosmos are the same. We know that now. All the atoms in use are literally made in the inside of the stars."
Sagan suggests man, Mars and the stars have a common destiny.
So does Bradbury who writes, "Am I trying to say that it is our genetics to go to Mars? Yes. We go there because the Universe terrifies us and we would solve that terror. We go there because death is a mystery and life an even bigger one. We go there because, as Ahab said, all this was rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before the oceans rolled."

Thank you, Linnl, for posting this. This is absolutely beautiful. I had not seen this precise quote from Ray before. I also forgot that Viking landed on Mars on the Apollo anniversary. The Bicentennial year was remarkable in many ways.

Like Ray, I am saddened by the current state of NASA and hope that it can, one day soon, regain the magic of the glory years.

August 3rd in Pasadena, CA

Mars: Why Earthlings are sooo Obsessed.

http://www.scpr.org/events/201...are-so-o-o-obsessed/

Monsterologist John of MONSTERMAGAZINEWORLD blogspot has posted Part 1 of a 1969 interview by John Stanely with Ray Bradbury:

http://monstermagazineworld.bl...ws-ray-bradbury.html

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Linnl,

And here is Part 2:

http://monstermagazineworld.bl...ray-bradbury_27.html

One of Ray's favorite tools.

On this date in 1961: IBM released the Selectric typewriter