STARGAZER #509 for July 11, 2009

Where Were You July 20, 1969?


Wednesday, July 16, 1969, we watched with keen interest as Apollo 11
blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on what we hoped would be a historic
mission to the Moon. We already had a Sunday night party planned to watch the
lunar landing with friends.

Just 15 years before, my scout troop camped at the old West Ranch near
Clear Lake, the future home of Johnson Space Center's Mission Control. Then
space exploration existed only in science fiction. But the Russians abruptly
changed all that Oct. 4, 1957, when they shocked the world with the launch
of Sputnik 1, the world's first human-made satellite. They simultaneously
launched the Space Age and began the Cold War space race with the U.S.

The early years saw the U.S. frantically playing catch-up. Apr. 12, 1961,
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in a
space ship.

Then six weeks later, on May 25, 1961, the newly-elected President John
Kennedy made his now-famous bold declaration: "I believe that this nation
should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of
landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth." And indeed, the
race was on.

First came the Mercury flights, each carrying one astronaut. Alan
Shephard's 1961 suborbital flight made him the first American in space. Then
Feb.
20, 1962, Mercury Friendship 7 took John Glenn into orbit, making him an
American hero. But the Russians were still comfortably ahead.

Next came the two-person Gemini flights in which Gemini 3 took Gus Grisson
and John Young into orbit in March 1965. The next several Gemini flights
saw increasingly sophisticated maneuvers, like the orbital rendezvous and
docking of two space craft.

The three-person Apollo series got off to a tragic start when Jan. 27,
1967, Gus Grisson, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a flash fire
inside Apollo 1 during a launch pad training exercise. The Russians also
had tragedies and cosmonaut deaths in what was clearly a dangerous space
race.

In 1968 the Apollo 7 crew orbited Earth, and the Apollo 8 crew were the
first humans to orbit the Moon in Dec. 1968. May 1969, Apollo 10 conducted a
"dress rehearsal" by going to the Moon and doing all but landing.

Then came the main show Sunday night, July 20, 1969. Our family and
friends were huddled around our small black & white tv, set up in our side yard
so we could also see the real Moon low in the west. Although we were pretty
confident of success, it was still a nail-biter as we knew it could end in
failure, or worse. But when it became apparent that Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin had landed safely, we were ecstatic. To this day, I still get goose
bumps at Armstrong's first words from the surface of the Moon, directed at
my old campsite: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."





Next Two Weeks. Avg. sunrise: 6:36 a.m.; avg. sunset: 8:33 p.m. (exact for
Waco, TX)
* Tue. morning brilliant Venus is to the upper left of Taurus' reddish
star Aldebaran.
* The Moon is a 3rd quarter Wed.
* The morning of July 18, the crescent Moon, Pleiades star cluster,
Aldebaran, Mars, and Venus are grouped low in the east before dawn, with Venus
and Aldebaran at the bottom and the Pleiades at the top.
* The July 21 new Moon produces a total solar eclipse over India, China,
and the Pacific, but not here.
* The evening of July 24, the crescent Moon is below Saturn low in the
west at dusk.

Naked-eye Planets. Evening: Saturn is low in the west and Jupiter is up
in the east by 11 p.m. Morning: Jupiter is the brightest object in the south
with "morning star" Venus low in the east and much fainter Mars above it.

Star Party. The Central Texas Astronomical Society's free monthly star
party is tonight at the Waco Wetlands beginning at 8:30 p.m., weather
permitting. For directions see my Website.

=======================================================


Stargazer appears every other week in the Waco Tribune-Herald and other
newspapers. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Write
him at 918 N. 30th St., Waco, TX 76707, call or fax at (254) 753-6920, or
e-mail at _paulderrickwaco@..._ (mailto:paulderrickwaco@...) .
Copyright 2009 by Paul Derrick. Permission is granted for free electronic
distribution as long as these paragraphs are included. Please obtain
permission from the author for publication in any other form. To be added to
(or removed from) the free e-mail distribution list, send your e-mail
address (and name) to _paulderrickwaco@..._ (mailto:paulderrickwaco@...)
.

* * See the Stargazer Web site at http://www.stargazerpaul.com. * *
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