Exactly 33 years ago today .......




http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL...000-000630.jpg


""Twenty seconds and counting......fifteen seconds ......guidance is internal ..... .twelve......eleven......ten.. nine............"

The 750,000 people gathered to watch the launch were hung in suspense, listening to the count on their radios. All eyes were waiting for the first lick of flame at the base of the gleaming white rocket. Nearby, fourteen people in flame protection gear on armoured personnel carriers tensed behind their sand bunker, ready to rush in to help the astronauts in an emergency.

At T8.9 seconds the five F1 engines burst into life, spewing fire and smoke down into the flame deflector and trench below. 28,000 gallons of cold water per minute flooded out over the walls, mixed with the searing flames to generate clouds of steam. Sheets of ice, formed on the rocket's skin from the super cold fuel within, flaked off in an avalanche of white. Thundering shock waves spread out, filling the sky with startled flocks of duck, heron, and small birds. Even in the bright daylight the glare from the flames became so intense it hurt the eyes.

Four giant clamps gripped the straining rocket as the engines built up to their full thrust of 7.5 million lb and the launch team rapidly checked all systems were running properly.

T0, at 9:32 am, "....all engines running. Lift off. We have lift off."

With maximum thrust built up to the equivalent of 180 million horsepower, twenty times more powerful than John Glenn's rocket, the hold down clamps released the straining rocket. Driven by a power equal to 32 Jumbo jets, slowly, majestically, the mighty vehicle rose off the pad, sliding out of eight guiding taper pins for the first six inches (15 centimetres) before tilting over about one degree to make sure of keeping clear of the tower. The rushing river of searing flames plastered the gantry and created flecks of fire dancing on the steel structure. The fins at the bottom of the rocket cleared the tower and the flames and heat drew away to leave the blackened, blistered edifice standing empty, alone. Water still tumbled down the tower at 17,000 gallons per minute to preserve it from the heat from the passing rocket blast.

The huge crowd of onlookers stared through the heat haze at the shimmering image of the moon ship and saw two gigantic torches of flame shoot out of the bottom and splay out to billowing clouds of fire and smoke. They watched in awe as the rocket began to rise off the ground in silence it was eerie to watch this spectacle of fire and noise in silence.

But not for long. Fifteen seconds later it reached them. It began as the crackling of breaking sticks, rising to a barking, to a thunder louder than any thunderstorm they had ever heard. The very ground shook, the air pounded their bodies. A rushing wall of apocalyptic fury of sound engulfed them on its way to dissipate in the far distance. The ground vibrated up to four miles away. The veteran Atlantic flier Charles Lindbergh, watching the launch, said it was like bombs falling nearby. Australian journalist Derryn Hinch, packed in among the 3,497 press corps, said it was like being hit in the stomach with a cricket bat, and later he found bruises on the tops of his thighs from the shuddering desk top.

Apollo Eleven was on its way to rendezvous with the moon, 218,096 suspense filled miles away at that moment."

http://www.tip.net.au/~jsaxon/space/...11.htm#Liftoff



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Regolith on 2002-07-16 08:53 ]</font>

The funny thing is, that photo, and ones associated with Apollo 11, has found it's way onto the desktop wallpaper of every PC in the school where I work. It took me ages! Good use of ICT Tech time, if you ask me.

I'll never forget the launch date of Apollo 11... it took off on my birthday! I thought that was very propitious.

If you can believe this, the FoxNews Channel, not the fox entertainment channel which showed the Moon Hoax show, actually acknowledged that today was the launching of Apollo 11 to the Moon.

FoxNews is known for its conservative leanings and objective reporting, os it does not surprise me that they would celebrate this great achievement of man. Other more liberal stations would be more apt to use this historic date to point out how that money could of and should of been used for some great "humanitarian" purpose rather than the advancement of science and exploration.

Uh, huh. and other more conservative stations would point out that the money should have been spent via tax rebates or subsidies to specific industries. So what?

Leave politics out of it, let's talk about space!