Apollo 10 - Stafford, Young and Cernan! One of my favorite Apollo missions. First color TV broadcast from space, at that time humanity only stayed a few dozen miles from lunar surface. Americans have to give more value to their space program, it's a world treasure, especially considering that it's the only nation in history who performed lunar landings.
When you consider how expensive videotape was in those days, it makes us that much more appreciative that these original telecast tapes were preserved. Back then it was common practice to "wipe" or reuse videotapes as much as possible. Thankfully that isn't done that much anymore.
Man I love Gene Cernan. I am so honored to have an autographed navigation chart from this mission which came from his personal collection. It is by far my most treasured possession.
What a time to be alive, unfortunately I was born two and half months after Apollo 11 and was too young to remember any of the Apollo lunar landings. I did enjoy watching many of the STS missions of the Space Shuttle, still remember the first launch of the Shuttle in 1981, awesome and exciting.
I was born in October of 1965. So I was around but obviously I was quite young to remember most of the launches during that time. However, we lived in Satellite Beach, Florida which is like 30 or 40 minutes from Kennedy Space Center. MY late father was stationed at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from 1969 to 1971. I do remember a couple of Apollo launches when we were there. One of them we watched from the beach in daylight. There were all of these people with their handheld transistor radios listening to the broadcast during the liftoff. What memories! I also saw one space shuttle launch in August of 2009 at midnight from Kennedy Space Center at midnight. I believe it was either Atlantis or Endeavor. I was there on summer vacation. That was totally awesome! You haven't seen a space shuttle launch until you have seen one at night! It's something you'll never forget!
Flying Apollo 10 must have been unsatisfying. Going all the way there only to hover ten miles over the surface. It is rumored that Stafford and Cernan were briefed shortly before liftoff that the LM did not have enough fuel for a landing, so don't try it!
Got a question for all the fake moon landing conspiracy believers out there: Was any part of this mission faked? If so, please explain. (Thank you in advance for the laughs.)
Just finished watching on the 55th anniversary of this launch, and realized, this is the first time that no one from this crew is still alive on an anniversary of their mission. Ad astra.
2:24 Then: "OK, you monitor this system, and you monitor that system, and you monitor that system, and you monitor that system..." Today: "What are you doing?" "I'm monitoring all of the systems on my phone"...
I've watched these launches thousands of times already. They only seem to get better. What I wouldn't give to go back in time and see the launch of the largest, most powerful vehicle ever successfully flown into space. We still have yet to make another spacecraft capable of carrying both heavy cargo and people beyond earth orbit.
This appears to be the first U.S. manned space launch in which air-to-ground communications to/from the spacecraft were released live to the TV and radio networks.
ULTRA_SD70ace productions Productions 10 was a "dress rehearsal." The LM Snoopy only flew to approximately 10 nautical miles above the Lunar surface before jettisoning the Descent Stage and firing the Ascent Engine to rendezvous and dock with CSM Charlie Brown.
They went there to test the systems on the lunar module and to know what to program for the descent so Neil would know what to expect when he went in for the landing.
