Don't Bogart My Blog: Science Times: Is It Time to Play With Spaceships Again?

Plus: Vanishing Places that Built Apollo 11 and Restoring Mission Control

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Wednesday, July 17, 2019

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Tuning In to the Apollo 11 TV Show

On day two aboard Apollo 11, the crew had a lot of work to do. But they made time on this stretch of the journey to point a TV camera back at Earth, and each other.

In 35 minutes of video beamed home on the second day of the trip, the astronauts engaged in some of the most ad-libbed segments of their passage. Buzz Aldrin did some push-ups. The astronauts let a flashlight freely rotate in the absence of gravity. And Michael Collins, the command module's pilot, gabbed with mission control.

"Neil's standing on his head again," he said as the camera passed an inverted Mr. Armstrong. "He's trying to make me nervous."

He also showed off the dining options.

"Would you believe you're looking at chicken stew, here?" he asked, followed with praise for the food.

Charlie Duke, the astronaut in Houston whose job was to communicate with the crew at this time, responded, "The surgeons are saying thank you, there, for that."

Michael Roston

Is It Time to Play With Spaceships Again?

Mike McQuade

By DENNIS OVERBYE

After 50 years of Apollo nostalgia, we have yet to fully answer the central question: Why send humans into space?

Charles Lowry, a parachute expert from Columbus, Ohio, wanted to join the Apollo effort in California. His wife needed to be persuaded:

Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

Two Magical Places That Sent Apollo 11 to the Moon and Back

By KENNETH CHANG

They've nearly vanished, but hubs in Southern California and on Long Island played key roles in the lunar race.

The newly renovated mission control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Friday.

Todd Spoth for The New York Times

NASA Reopens Mission Control Room That Landed Men on Moon

By DAVID W. BROWN

The restored room in Houston is a museum piece, and yet it is alive, as though engineers stepped out briefly but would be right back.

Footage from tapes being auctioned on Saturday as the

via Sotheby's

How Moon-Landing Tapes Found in a $218 Batch Could Fetch $1 Million

By BEN KENIGSBERG

Three reels of videotape will be auctioned at Sotheby's on Saturday. Other recordings could have laid claim to being earlier or better, but those tapes were lost.

Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries

He Was to Be the First Black Astronaut. Here's Why It Never Happened.

By EMILY LUDOLPH

For a brief moment, the civil rights movement and the space race came together in the person of Ed Dwight.

The moon landing as seen from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on July 20, 1969.

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Apollo 11 Was Also a Global Media Sensation

By TIFFANY HSU

The satellites were finally ready to beam images back to Earth in 1969. And some 600 million people watched the event live.

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

Looking Back at People Watching the Apollo 11 Mission

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

It didn't matter where they were when it headed to the moon. People couldn't take their eyes off of it.

ONE GIANT LEAP: THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING, 50 YEARS ON

On July 21, The New York Times presents the reading of a short play by Tony Award-winning author J.T. Rogers. Commissioned specifically for this event, the play weaves together transcripts of the Apollo 11 mission, Times coverage from the period and excerpts from interviews with the men and women who made it happen.

Following the reading, Michael Barbaro of "The Daily" will host an onstage conversation with Michael Collins, command module pilot on Apollo 11, Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station, and Poppy Northcutt, the first female engineer to work in NASA's mission control, starting with Apollo 8.

Tickets $50–$200. For more information, see https://timesevents.nytimes.com/onegiantleap.