Today is the 40th anniversary of people walking on the Moon!
Or, if you're part of the tin-foil hat brigade, the 40th anniversary of when NASA faked the Moon landing.
In any event, I think that we should take a moment to remember all the monkey astronauts and other animals that risked or gave their lives as test subjects so that we could get to this point...
If you're interested, Wikipedia has a great article about Monkeys in Space.
And if you want to watch a fantastic film about what was happening behind the scenes of the Apollo moon landing back here on earth, I highly, highly recommend watching The Dish. This film is about the Australian crew responsible for receiving the moon landing transmissions broadcast to earth when the USA had rotated away from the moon. It's touching, funny, and a really good story. Two thumbs up and five stars from me!
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I second the recommendation for the dish. I saw it in the cinema for some reason, although can’t remember why as it wouldn’t strike me as my sort of film. Was great though.
This Davetoon rocks!
WOW. You’ve seen the Dish? I thought no one out of Australia would have seen it. The people that made that movie, made another on called The Castle, and it is the most popular movie ever made in Australia. I don’t think it would have the same appeal outside of Australia though!
Those poor monkeys! You made me cry. 🙁
(However, I love the cartoon!)
Would this be the place to admit that I remember that day? Oh boy. I remember watching it orbit in the night sky as well.
I saw The Dish when it first came out.
Loved it! And the monkey. Or monkeys. Or whatever.
dude! really? today was my birthday… totally did not know
it was also fake moon landing day too.
Thanks for the article link.
Yeah The Dish is a pretty good movie 🙂
Although Canberrans would remind people that the first moon-landing footage actually came from a radio telescope in Canberra, not “the dish” in Parkes 🙂
There are actually quite a few problems with the movie, as they seemed to be combining events from all three Australia tracking locations for dramatic effect. They must have learned that from Hollywood. 🙂
Foil hat brigade?
Well, what if you’re part of the Saran-Wrap hat brigade? Hmmm???
Yeah, I remember watching that on t.v. as a kid, too. (Crap, we’re getting old…)
One small step for monkey, one large step for monkeykind.