Reader Tips

Reader Tips 54 Comments
 
 

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first of three special Apollo 11 editions of SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to that singular time in history forty years ago, here is the original Launch Sequence ¤ video (9:55), as you would have seen it, live, on television, starting at T minus six minutes and counting, on July 16, 1969, at 09:26 EDT. Over three hundred and sixty feet tall ~ a thirty story building. Almost eight million pounds of thrust. Mere words are inadequate.

And here are some things you might not have seen before: here is live footage from a number of the high-speed cameras ¤ involved in the Apollo 11 launch (3:16), and footage from the high-speed engine cameras ¤ of Apollo 8, 11, and 12 (3:48, no audio).

If everything works out as planned, knock on wood, we have some, I think, fine shows in the can for next Sunday night, when we’re on the moon, over two hundred thousand miles away, and a week Thursday night, when we return to Earth. We went a long way from home, folks, in space, in time, in technology, and in the history of our species.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

54 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker ~ In the first comment made after DJ EBD’s SDA Late Nite Radio show last night, I made a somewhat snarky remark about the artist EBD featured in his very well researched and presented show. I don’t think people should do that, and yet I got carried away, ceded my own principle, and was rude. For the public record, I would like to reiterate and strengthen a comment I made later in that entry yesterday: I apologize for that, EBD. Further, thank you for trading me your regular Wednesday night SDA LNR show, in order that we may start our Apollo 11 anniversary shows sequence on time tonight. You are a gentleman and a scholar, EBD. ~ Thank you, Madam Speaker.

  3. I had no idea that such incredible footage of the launch existed. Thanks for the link.

  6. I was 9 years old in 1969 and got up at 7:00 AM on a summer morning to watch this launch. Still a tremendous thrill today. A shuttle launch just doesn’t compare. We probably won’t get a similar rush until the next moon landing flight or, dare I say, a Mars landing?

  8. This is amazing. The announcer said it was travelling at 2000 feet per second. A hand gun shoots at 1200 feet per second. wow.
    I remember watching many of the moon launches with my Dad as a little girl. He was so into the space program and so proud of Apollo that he took us all to NASA to see the actual place where it all began. Our nation just seemed so indestructable then. good memories. Thank you

  9. so what happened?
    howcum the last moon mission was > 30 years ago? we should have been to the moon 50 – 100 times since then.
    what happened? what happened to the political will, the priorities, the excitement?
    what happened is the public is like a junkie looking for the next high. builds up a tolerance for adrenalin-rush-by-proxy. NASA de-emphasizes science in the interests of circus rides. 1 or 2 weeks up and back instead of 1 or 2 months. that’s where the russians got it right; they made their missions worth the launch.
    well shucks, there’s always one show that gets the cash and sells tickets. WAR.
    I stayed up in my parent’s kitchen and watched Neil and Buzz step out of the LM on their b&w. didn’t matter; the image from the moon was b&w anyway.
    “that’s one small step for man”. Neil Armstrong didn’t flub his lines, he just felt uncomfortable bring attention to himself i.e. ‘a man’, so he fine tuned the script but claimed for years he followed it. the modification he made however is more fitting: ‘one small step for man’ i.e. any member of the species, ‘one giant leap’ i.e. compared to the accomplishments over the centuries that are the history, trade and culture of the races and all societies.
    Neil Armstrong doesn’t ‘owe’ anybody anything; we owe him a great debt the way he emphasized teamwork and showed what can be accomplished with that approach to challenges and problem solving.
    something very very lacking in the political sphere for even longer than apollo 11.

  11. I was 13 on that day. My dad was 59. I don’t think he really understood what was going on. It was just too much for people his age to absorb. He died before the age of home computers, and cell phones.
    Growing up with parents that age, I felt I was looking through a window to the 19th century. From my vantage point, I could see there was no end to the technological possibilities. From their point of view, it was a great hoax.
    Sometimes I wonder if they saw something I missed.

  12. Just saw a trailer for the new Adam Sandler movie:
    Not, NOT, NOT
    Unfunniest man on the planet.

  14. Colin from Mission: good clip from Glen B.. The lady was quoting Michael Moore’s Sicko. Go Figure.
    The big “O” has run up a deficit of a Trillion $ to date and he is going to bring in universal HC this year. The 40 million who supposedly don’t have health insurance will be reduced to only 30 million by this move.
    My question is how does anyone think we Canadians will do when the US Greenback is worth 50c Canadian?
    Oh; and say goodbye to HC Research. There will be no money for it.
    Waiting For Nothing

  15. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/15/tavakoli.goldman.earnings/index.html
    “Goldman may be the largest indirect beneficiary of AIG’s bailout, receiving $12.9 billion in collateral, including securities lending transactions, from AIG after the government bailed out the insurance company……
    If the federal government had not intervened and if AIG had gone into bankruptcy, Goldman probably would not have received its $12.9 billion from AIG. U.S. taxpayers and the American economy are owed some of the bailout money passed directly through AIG to Goldman.”
    So let me get this straight, because AIG received bailout money, and used it to pay back Goldman, Goldman somehow now owes the taxpayer money?
    How does that work? The money you receive that someone owed you is now “owed” to someone else?
    What kind of reverse economics is this?

  16. Ha ha, Vitruvius isn’t perfect!
    (“I kid! I kid because I love.” Krusty the Clown)
    curious_george @11:23 – I agree. We should be enjoying discount holiday packages to that place by now.
    I’ve always assumed, and I read someone else assuming it recently, that Armstrong left out the article (“one small step for Man”) just because is scanned better.

  18. I was 3. My grandmother (grandmother!) went to the Cape a few years later and came back with the complete set of Apollo 11 mission photos for me. I still have them, in the original envelope.
    The best quote – ever – on the moon landings came from Tom Hanks in “Apollo 13”:
    “It’s not a miracle – we just decided to go.”
    And the second best:
    “I look up at the Moon and I wonder: when will we be going back? And who will that be?”
    I wonder.

  22. What always blew me away about the design of the Saturn V rocket was that the entire structure (particularly under thrust) was designed to be supported by nothing more than five engine nozzles at the bottom of the first stage.  Five nozzles, eight million pounds of thrust.
    Each nozzle was supporting 1.6 million pounds of thrust, or 800 tons.  Mind-boggling.
    Garth

  23. As I guess was the intent, this post got me thinking back to being five years old and watching all this. I do remember it, maybe not as clear as some or even understood it, but I do remember it.
    It also got me looking back at the people and I found Gene Kranz’s speech to his people after the Apollo 1 disaster on the launch pad. I would crawl on broken glass to work for a man like this:
    “Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, ‘Dammit, stop!’ I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did. From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: ‘Tough’ and ‘Competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write ‘Tough and Competent’ on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.”

  24. Curious George:
    going to the moon was like the world collectively (we got to watch on TV and the Americans actually get to say they bankrolled it) climbed an mountain. And like a mountain once you have climbed it you rarely go back up again – you want to get working on going up the next one. Except in this case the next mountain is a hundred times higher/farther away.
    Unlike discovering the americas there is no commercial reason for returning again and again. It was largely underwritten as having military research and cold war propaganda value – which it did. But like the avro arrow, it was redundant and obsolete fornthe purposes it was done and deserved to be scrapped. Continuing either would have been a huge, pointless waste of money with a few exceptions – we could have sent jimmy Carter nancy pelosi and al gore (and several others) on a one way ticket to there.

  25. Bait and switch.
    The big Zero says one thing but delivers something else.
    From the proposed Healthcare Bill- “… the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of the year the legislation becomes law.”
    There are more provisions restricting private plans.
    The effect will be to kill off private insurance plans.
    http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854

  26. Breaking!
    Barry’s teleprompter, the one that broke this week, is being rebuilt and retrofitted to be a teleprompter/baseball throwing device similar to the ones found at batting cages…Now, just like his speeches, which already contains curve, slide, fork and knuckle in it’s verbiage, the new multi million dollar device which had to be built “now” according to Barry, otherwise “America is going to be in a crisis”, will also serve at baseball ceremonial opening events.
    It is to note that the new custom made device will also be able to plug into stadium PA systems effectively drowning any live undesired ‘noises’ replacing them with wild cheers and whistling and possibly chants like “Obama! Obama!”.
    Asked about golf and bowling which dear leader tried recently, the White House spokesperson said they are still debating between building machines for that or providing their own audio/video shoots to the media. It is to note that Hollowood special effect specialists are being consulted for this.
    Oh, that Barry, when it comes to having his narcissism bruised, he’s a fast thinking boy.
    Barry, you da man!

  27. Now, my continuing segments of “Where’s the Birth Certificate”:
    From: “World Net Daily”
    “he Department of Defense has compelled a private employer to fire a U.S. Army Reserve major from his civilian job after he had his military deployment orders revoked for arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.
    According to the CEO of Simtech Inc., a private company contracted by the Defense Security Services, an agency of the Department of Defense, the federal government has compelled the termination of Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook.
    Cook’s attorney, Orly Taitz, wrote in her blog that Simtech CEO Larry Grice said he would try to find another position within the company for Cook, but nothing is currently available.
    The Department of Defense does contracting in the general field of information technology/systems integration, at which Cook, a senior systems engineer and architect, was employed until taking a military leave of absence on July 10 in preparation for his deployment to Afghanistan.
    “Grice told plaintiff, in essence, that the situation had become ‘nutty and crazy,’ and that plaintiff would no longer be able to work at his old position,” Taitz wrote.
    Grice made clear that it was Defense Security Services that had compelled Simtech to fire Cook, Taitz wrote.
    According to the report, Grice told Cook “there was some gossip that ‘people were disappointed in’ the plaintiff because they thought he was manipulating his deployment orders to create a platform for political purposes.”
    The Simtech CEO then discussed Cook’s expectation of final paychecks, without any severance pay, and wished the soldier well.
    Messages left with Grice’s office had not been returned at the time of this report.
    “A federal agency (such as the Department of Defense, acting through the Defense Security Services Agency) clearly violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if it takes or fails to take (or threatens to take or fail to take) a personnel action with respect to any employee or applicant because of any disclosure of information by the employee or applicant that he or she reasonably believes evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety,” Taitz wrote.
    “What has happened in the present case of Stefan Frederick Cook is that a federal agency appears to have taken action against Stefan Frederick Cook’s private employer, Simtech, Inc., which is a closely held corporation owned and operated by members of a single family, who are as much victims of the Department of Defense’s heavy-handed interference with plaintiff Cook’s private-sector employment as is plaintiff Cook himself…”

  28. Here’s just a small portion of Orly Taitz Application for Injunction, Re: “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”
    “…(10) The evidence contained in Exhibit E shows that Barack Hussein Obama might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 social security numbers prior to assuming the office of President. The social security number most commonly used by Barack Hussein Obama, is one issued in the state of Connecticut, the state where Barack Hussein Obama never resided and it shows him to be 119 years old. This coupled with the fact that Mr. Obama’s grandmother, Madeline Dunham was a volunteer at the Oahu Circuit Court Probate Department and had access to the social security numbers of the deceased, constitutes circumstantial evidence casting serious doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Obama and his claims of being born on US territory. Exhibit F, the expert affidavit of renowned forensic document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines, states that the certification of live birth posted by Mr. Obama as verification of his legitimacy, cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent…”
    Read the whole thing if you like:
    http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/blog1/

  29. Getting stimulated? Why not stimulate a ‘vote rich’ corridor by tossing hundreds of millions at it?
    How’s that government spending per capita per region map looking? Not so even? Funnier yet, the 905 has got a long way to go to beat Frenchie LaRoque…a brie in every fridge, and a poutine for every vote to be bought!
    Via Rail funding in millions
    By ALTHIA RAJ
    NATIONAL BUREAU — OTTAWA — The federal government is to announce millions in funding to Via Rail today to upgrade tracks and increase train speed on the busy Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal lines.
    The investments are also expected to reduce frequent train delays and help Via Rail add additional train routes.
    The cash will come from $407 million set aside for the Crown corporation in January’s budget as part of the economic stimulus package.

  30. Here’s just a small portion of Orly Taitz Application for Injunction, Re: “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”
    “…(10) The evidence contained in Exhibit E shows that Barack Hussein Obama might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 social security numbers prior to assuming the office of President. The social security number most commonly used by Barack Hussein Obama, is one issued in the state of Connecticut, the state where Barack Hussein Obama never resided and it shows him to be 119 years old. This coupled with the fact that Mr. Obama’s grandmother, Madeline Dunham was a volunteer at the Oahu Circuit Court Probate Department and had access to the social security numbers of the deceased, constitutes circumstantial evidence casting serious doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Obama and his claims of being born on US territory. Exhibit F, the expert affidavit of renowned forensic document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines, states that the certification of live birth posted by Mr. Obama as verification of his legitimacy, cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent…”
    Read the whole thing if you like,
    Google: Orly Taitz Esquire

  31. The Canadian People’s Car Co.’s (CPC) executives, Cabinet Ministers, bureaucrats, and Parliamentarians are simply thrilled to find out this whole ‘business thingy’ is like, so simple!
    If your product sucks – or is overpriced – create a rebate and subsidize the product. Like, why don’t we get paid the same as the private sector? ‘Business’ is easy!!!
    Ontario offers cash incentives for electric cars
    Updated Wed. Jul. 15 2009 2:33 PM ET
    CTV.ca News Staff
    The Ontario government plans to rev up Ontario drivers’ interest in electric cars by offering up to $10,000 in cash incentives to drivers who buy the cars.
    Under a plan announced today by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, drivers will receive rebates of between $4,000 and $10,000 for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles purchased after July 1, 2010.
    “They tell me when they roll the first of these off the assembly line, they’re going to be expensive relative to the conventional care powered by an internal combustion engine,” McGuinty told reporters from a General Motors dealership in Toronto.
    “Well, we want to help people buy those first cars; we want to help the early movers.”
    The province also plans to build public charging facilities at Ontario government and GO Transit parking lots. The province will build further infrastructure for charging electric vehicles through a combination of private sector companies and Ontario’s existing electricity utilities.
    As well, those driving electric vehicles will receive green licence plates that would allow them to use less-congested carpool lanes (High Occupancy Vehicle, or HOV lanes) until 2015, even if there is only one person in the vehicle.
    McGuinty days they are working with other government and corporate partners, such as The University of Toronto and Wal-Mart Canada, to designate priority parking spots for vehicles with green plates…..”
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090708/electric_ontario_090714/20090714?s_name=Autos

  32. Tin hat Terry is hard at it I see.
    The idiot running the country to our south has enough real issues to hammer on without this stupidity making the right look like a bunch of 9/11 consipracy wanna be’s.

  33. It shouldn’t just stop with rebates though, I mean, these car buyers should also get free power (to charge the cars with), improved parking spots, and a feeling of smugness that latte sucking socialists get when they know they are doing more than those ‘average’ people down the street.
    http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090715/talkback_to_090715/20090716/?hub=TorontoNewHome
    Uh oh – ‘Comments Are Closed’. Sheesh. The People should admire and love the efforts of the Glorious Government and the CPC.
    I mean, Prentice the Dim’s Carbon Tax is good for you, the economy, and the environment. The People should be singing our Glorious Praises.

  34. Here’s part of the Forensic specialist report, Sandra Ramsey Lines on Barry’s Certificate of Live Birth:
    “2. I have reviewed the attached affidavit posted on the internet
    from “Ron Polarik,” [PDF] who has declined to provide his name
    because of a number of death threats he has received. After my
    review and based on my years of experience, I can state with
    certainty that the COLB presented on the internet by the various
    groups, which include the “Daily Kos,” the Obama Campaign,
    “Factcheck.org” and others cannot be relied upon as genuine. Mr.
    Polarik raises issues concerning the COLB that I can affirm.
    Software such as Adobe Photoshop can produce complete images or
    alter images that appear to be genuine; therefore, any image
    offered on the internet cannot be relied upon as being a copy of
    the authentic document.
    3. Upon a cursory inspection of the internet COLB, one aspect of
    the image that is clearly questionable is the obliteration of the
    Certificate No. That number is a tracking number that would allow
    anyone to ask the question, “Does this number refer to the
    Certification of Live Birth for the child Barack Hussein Obama II?”
    It would not reveal any further personal information; therefore,
    there would be no justifiable reason for oliterating it.
    4. In my experience as a forensic document examiner, if an original
    of any document exists, that is the document that must be examined
    to obtain a definitive finding of genuineness or non-genuineness.
    In this case, examination of the vault birth certificate for
    President-Elect Obama would lay this issue to rest once and for all.”
    Doubts about Sandra Ramsey Line’s Credentials?:
    http://www.asqde.org/SRLines/SandraRLines.htm
    You can be your own judge.

  35. Hey brother, everyone love a good conspiracy, but you need to put the tin foil hat back on, you’re picking up too many radio waves.
    Start a website, you can add to the 100’s of the ones that exist.
    Or maybe a sandwich board and a fluffy bunny costume on Hwy 1.

  38. “Tin hat Terry is hard at it I see.
    The idiot running the country to our south has enough real issues to hammer on without this stupidity making the right look like a bunch of 9/11 consipracy wanna be’s.”
    Atlantic Jim
    Hey, ocean sucker, care to share any links that will provide enough for me to remove my tin foil hat or are you just going to do like the rest of them and just throw some insults around?
    The only rebuke that I’ve seen from the other side other than name calling is to look at what Obama posted on the internet Re: His Certificate of Live Birth. This seems to satisfy them as “case closed”.
    On this, look to my above previous post about a Forensic’s analysis on it.
    BTW, Your opinion that Obama “has enough issues to take care of” is totally irrelevant.
    Really, really lame argument dude…Try again.
    The only thing you state that Obama and Co. (His MSM for one) are trying very hard to spread is: “making the right look like a bunch of 9/11 consipracy wanna be’s.”
    Anyway, It seems to have worked with you.
    BTW, I never doubted the moon landing and never believed that 9/11 was an inside job. Why?
    Let alone that both examples seemed far fetched to begin with, first, conspiracies of this magnitude would require impossible odds to be succesful and secondly, there has been very good scientific debunking done. Popular Mechanics for example on the twin towers.
    Now let’s see your credible debunking on this one.

  39. Ocean sucker? Six comments on one topic? This is Reader Tips, Terry, smarten up. Remember, everyone, as Kate says, this is not a debating society, and even worse, don’t forget, in Reader Tips, I control the delete button.

  40. Vit, the “ocean sucker” was my counter punch to “tin hat Terry”…The rest of my post remains civil.

  42. Ottawa stuck with deficit until 2019, as slump, baby-boomer effect hits treasury
    By Julian Beltrame – 21 minutes ago
    OTTAWA — Ottawa is on track to add $200 billion to the national debt over the next few years and will take at least a decade to balance the budget, a new paper says…..And economist Dale Orr takes Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to task for criticizing the parliamentary budget office’s recent estimate that on the year Ottawa currently expects to return to surplus – 2013-14 – it will in fact still be $17 billion in the hole….
    “The government just dump(ed) on him,” Orr said of the criticism of budget officer Kevin Page….
    Flaherty initially reacted to Page’s report by saying it was “pessimistic.” Harper went further, rejecting the notion that Canada has a structural deficit that would require tax increases or cutting programs to eliminate……”
    Someone’s right, and time will tell.
    It’s a shame that the Cons performing issue management on this aren’t being honest with Canadians.
    Liberal, Tory, same old story.
    On the upshot, it won’t be you that has to pay for it, it’ll be your kids and grandchildren.
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gd54gdUOF4vD7M-NrJ9lBHtGUWBg

  43. Quote of the Day:
    “We tried to grow our way out of deficits before and got knocked off base in 1980, 1981 and it was 1997 before we balanced the budget,” he said.
    “Do Canadians really want to pass on that much debt to their children? This is like a sea-change in Canadians’ thinking about deficits from where they were a year ago, and (Harper’s) own party’s thinking.”
    Good thing we got conservatives in office, and not the libranos, huh?

  44. So hardboiled, who are you going to vote for? The Libranos who’ll spend more or the NDP who’ll spend even more? Come on, fess up!

  45. National Post has a puff piece up about bambam’s birth certificate. The item itself is unremarkable..you are nuts if you don’t believe him. The good part is the comments where people are asking questions like why would you pay 900K to three law firms to not produce a birth certificate and transcripts? That is a very good question. I’ll show them mine for 90 bucks.

  46. Posted by: Soccermom at July 16, 2009 2:00 PM
    Neither the thieves nor Taliban Jack.
    When faced with slime on all sides, another way needs to be found.
    But I do figure it’s polite to point out the lies of our lying Cons – just so people are actually honest about what their ‘conservative’ government really is: a liberal one.
    Librano or Con, its the same old song…

  47. So I hope you’re trolling all the major prog and liblogs then, giving them heck as well? Certainly they deserve it just as much, seeing as our first economic update (which had no stimulus spending in it) wasn’t good enough and the Coalition forced all of this on us? You calling them out on that? Or would you have preferred the Coalition be in power?
    Hey, there’s always the Green party.

  48. More evidence of global warm…. I mean “climate change”….
    http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/manitoba/2009/07/16/10152321-sun.html
    Manitoba is now in its eighth consecutive month of below-normal temperatures — something that’s only happened twice since Environment Canada began keeping track of such trends in 1971 — and if we make it through nine, it will be a first.
    For July, normal daytime highs are 26 C and overnight lows are 13 C.
    “So far, there have only been two days where that has happened,” said Environment Canada spokesperson Dale Marciski.

  50. Posted by: Soccermom at July 16, 2009 4:02 PM
    Just trying to change the paradigm.
    The more partisan koolaid drank, the more limited the horizon.
    Your vision appears to be a tunnel.
    Free your mind. Think for yourself.

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