"This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" - RIP Neil Armstrong!

[H18sry]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19381098

[Beefster]

It's bizarre how gutted I am at hearing he's gone. The man was my absolute idol as a kid.

Thankfully, his deeds will far outlive any of us. Legend gets flung about far too readily these days but Armstrong (and the rest of the Apollo astronauts) are true legends.

[Hibs Class]

It's bizarre how gutted I am at hearing he's gone. The man was my absolute idol as a kid.

Thankfully, his deeds will far outlive any of us. Legend gets flung about far too readily these days but Armstrong (and the rest of the Apollo astronauts) are true legends.

Agree. He was a real hero with his achievements even before he joined the astronaut programme and whilst the moon landings may now be regarded as almost routine, the NASA moon programme with its successes and its setbacks was unprecedented, unimaginably dangerous and ultimately one of mankind's finest moments. Whilst the mission schedule was such that it wasn't set in stone that Armstrong would be first man on the moon, NASA certainly fell lucky when circumstance decreed that it was him. Legend. RIP.

[ballengeich]

Sad news about a pioneer. In the early 70s I attended a talk he gave in Edinburgh University. He seemed a modest man dedicated to the advance of scientific knowledge without looking for personal prestige.

[Gatecrasher]

Just saw this as well, theres a kind of sadness that theres a man with such a historic moment in history now gone. RIP

[VickMackie]

Just saw this as well, theres a kind of sadness that theres a man with such a historic moment in history now gone. RIP

It's strange. I was just listening to his wife on the radio and thinking that it's weird this guy will be remembered throughout history, for hundreds or thousands of years. If we last that long!

[Hibbyradge]

Science flew us to the moon.

Religion flew us into buildings.

RIP Neil.

[Hibrandenburg]

Science flew us to the moon.

Religion flew us into buildings.

RIP Neil.

Love that quote.

Neil Armstrong was an inspiration to a whole generation of children. A rare example of a man who's achievements left the WORLD (in every sense of the word) staring up in awe.

[Glory Lurker]

The man's quiet dignity only adds to his legend, but for the last few years I hoped that he'd sit down with a camera crew for a day and just talk about the landings. I don't know if he would have added anything to what we already know, but it would have been a priceless historical artefact.

Armstrong will always be the biggest name, and quite right too, but the whole Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programme was littered with heroes and incredible stories both in flight and behind the scenes. I do wonder how it will be viewed in a hundred years time, though, given that it was in reality the civil manifestation of a military rivalry. I also doubt that we will go back there, let alone to Mars and beyond.

Why can't the politicians in the US (or maybe China or India) not just man up and say "by the end of this decade we will have created a totally environmentally-friendly car" and direct efforts the ways the US did in the 60s?

Closer to home, it always makes me smile that one place Armstong was happy to go to lap up some adulation was Langholm. He went there not all that long after the landing to pay tribute to his Scottish roots (the clue's in the surname!). It's nice to have that connection (tenuous though it is) to mankind's greatest achievement.

[Beefster]

The man's quiet dignity only adds to his legend, but for the last few years I hoped that he'd sit down with a camera crew for a day and just talk about the landings. I don't know if he would have added anything to what we already know, but it would have been a priceless historical artefact.

Agree with you entirely. Armstrong declined the opportunity to take part in 'In the Shadow of the Moon'. It would have been great if he had done it, considering he was the only living moon-walker not to do so IIRC.

[NAE NOOKIE]

The courage it must have taken for Neil Armstrong and those who came after him to land on the Moon with only faith in the ability of the scientists and engineers who built the hardwear to get them home to hold on to ( with no hope of rescue if the stuff didnt work ) is hard to comprehend.

The word Hero is often overused ........... but for those guys it hardly seems good enough.

R.I.P. To a legend.

[NAE NOOKIE]

Science flew us to the moon.

Religion flew us into buildings.

RIP Neil.

Science enabled human beings to obliterate two cities with populations of hundereds of thousands of people. In the name of science human beings and animals have been tortured and killed over the decades. With Dynamite you can build a road to enable food, clothes and medical supplies to get to people who are in desperate need. It can also enable a maniac to blow up a building full of innocent people. A helicopter can pluck passangers off a sinking ship ... it can also napalm a Vietnamese village.

Its not what a thing is that matters so much as what you use it for. In that regard religion and science are two sides of the same coin.

[Hibrandenburg]

Science enabled human beings to obliterate two cities with populations of hundereds of thousands of people. In the name of science human beings and animals have been tortured and killed over the decades. With Dynamite you can build a road to enable food, clothes and medical supplies to get to people who are in desperate need. It can also enable a maniac to blow up a building full of innocent people. A helicopter can pluck passangers off a sinking ship ... it can also napalm a Vietnamese village.

Its not what a thing is that matters so much as what you use it for. In that regard religion and science are two sides of the same coin.

Think there is a world of difference between the two. Science enables you to commit atrocities on a larger scale yes, but I'm sure no one has ever dropped an A bomb whilst screaming "science is great" or "take that you filthy creationist".

What I'm trying to say is that science may deliver the means but it's not the motivation behind these events.

[--------]

Science flew us to the moon.

Religion flew us into buildings.

RIP Neil.


No.

Science gave us the means to fly a small number of carefully-selected men to the moon. (I'm not quite sure exactly how those carefully-selected men going to the moon has benefitted us in the decades since, mind :wink: )

It also gave us the means to incinerate cities in an instant and poison whole populations with plague viruses, while as its side-effects we see the pollution of the oceans and atmosphere and the radical transformation of our way of life, not always for the better. It also gave us the means to overcome some, but not all of these problems.

Religion gave a buncha bampots the motivation to use the benefits of science to fly big aeroplanes into big buildings to kill people.

Both are the products of human nature, and human nature is a handicap we all share.

[NAE NOOKIE]

Think there is a world of difference between the two. Science enables you to commit atrocities on a larger scale yes, but I'm sure no one has ever dropped an A bomb whilst screaming "science is great" or "take that you filthy creationist".

What I'm trying to say is that science may deliver the means but it's not the motivation behind these events.

Fanaticism isnt the sole preserve of Religion and I found your statement to be out of place on a thread which was supposed to be honouring Neil Armstrong. You may be interested to know that the Kurdish PKK who are a Marxist / Communist movement have had a number of suicide bombers.

In fact the biggest mass murders in World history were not commited in the name of any religion. Not much sign of any of the World religions being behind what happened in German occupied Europe or Stalinist Russia or Cambodia. In fact I would be willing to bet that more people have been murdered because of their religion than have commited murdered because they were religious.

Dont get me wrong I am not blind to the damage that religious fanaticism can cause. I have never read the Koran or had much experience of Buddism or Hinduism ..... but I do have a reasonable grasp of the New Testament and if you can find in it any scrap of evidence that Jesus encouraged ( in any way ) his followers or people in general to kill in the name of God I will sit naked in the preverbial bath of beans outside ER and gather donations for the Humanist Society.

Sorry to be so long winded, but if I have missed your point, you have ignored mine. Bad things have been done in the name of Science as well as religion. The motivation and methods may differ, but the results have been pretty similar. Like I said .... its not what a thing is that matters ... its what end its used for .. in science as well as religion.

As far as your A bomb analogy, was it totally outwith the bounds of possibility that a demonstration of this weapon could not have been arranged for the benefit of the Japanese prior to Heroshima and Nagasaki. Or was it the case that there were a number of folk who were curious as to the effect it would have on some human Guinea Pigs.

A number of Soldiers poisoned by 50s A bomb tests would probably agree with that.

Joseph Mengele carried out a number of disgusting experiments in Auchwitz in the name of science ... not religion.

To end on an appropriate note .... "you who are without sin cast the first stone"

[Pretty Boy]

Not going to get involved in any debate here.

I'm quite moved that one of the guys I thought was a real hero as a child has died. The fact he seemed to be quite a nice and humble man adds to that. To go to the moon in a craft that had had machines powering it that wouldn't even run a modern smart phone takes a very special type of bravery. Whether that action had had any long term benefit to humans doesn't really matter imo, for a few minutes half a billion people watched something that literally made their jaws drop in awe.

RIP Neil.

[NAE NOOKIE]

Not going to get involved in any debate here.

I'm quite moved that one of the guys I thought was a real hero as a child has died. The fact he seemed to be quite a nice and humble man adds to that. To go to the moon in a craft that had had machines powering it that wouldn't even run a modern smart phone takes a very special type of bravery. Whether that action had had any long term benefit to humans doesn't really matter imo, for a few minutes half a billion people watched something that literally made their jaws drop in awe.

RIP Neil.

:top marks

I am truly sorry that I have contributed to this thread being diverted from its true subject.

I for one firmly believe that it is the true destiny of the human race to get itsself off this planet one way or another, in fact I think that its almost in built in us and that what Neil Armstrong and his colleagues did was the beginning of that odessy. IMO by the time the Sun does its thing and oblitirates the Earth we will be long gone.

[Hibrandenburg]

Fanaticism isnt the sole preserve of Religion and I found your statement to be out of place on a thread which was supposed to be honouring Neil Armstrong. You may be interested to know that the Kurdish PKK who are a Marxist / Communist movement have had a number of suicide bombers.

In fact the biggest mass murders in World history were not commited in the name of any religion. Not much sign of any of the World religions being behind what happened in German occupied Europe or Stalinist Russia or Cambodia. In fact I would be willing to bet that more people have been murdered because of their religion than have commited murdered because they were religious.

Dont get me wrong I am not blind to the damage that religious fanaticism can cause. I have never read the Koran or had much experience of Buddism or Hinduism ..... but I do have a reasonable grasp of the New Testament and if you can find in it any scrap of evidence that Jesus encouraged ( in any way ) his followers or people in general to kill in the name of God I will sit naked in the preverbial bath of beans outside ER and gather donations for the Humanist Society.

Sorry to be so long winded, but if I have missed your point, you have ignored mine. Bad things have been done in the name of Science as well as religion. The motivation and methods may differ, but the results have been pretty similar. Like I said .... its not what a thing is that matters ... its what end its used for .. in science as well as religion.

As far as your A bomb analogy, was it totally outwith the bounds of possibility that a demonstration of this weapon could not have been arranged for the benefit of the Japanese prior to Heroshima and Nagasaki. Or was it the case that there were a number of folk who were curious as to the effect it would have on some human Guinea Pigs.

A number of Soldiers poisoned by 50s A bomb tests would probably agree with that.

Joseph Mengele carried out a number of disgusting experiments in Auchwitz in the name of science ... not religion.

To end on an appropriate note .... "you who are without sin cast the first stone"

I'll agree that this is the wrong thread for this discussion and will leave it there. Neil Armstrong's name should and will be remembered as long as there is Human life on this planet.

[--------]

Not going to get involved in any debate here.

I'm quite moved that one of the guys I thought was a real hero as a child has died. The fact he seemed to be quite a nice and humble man adds to that. To go to the moon in a craft that had had machines powering it that wouldn't even run a modern smart phone takes a very special type of bravery. Whether that action had had any long term benefit to humans doesn't really matter imo, for a few minutes half a billion people watched something that literally made their jaws drop in awe.

RIP Neil.


Apologies.

As one who sat through the first Moon landing, watching it on TV as events unfolded, I totally agree about Armstrong's courage, and the courage of Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.

I can tap into more power through my keyboard right now than was in the computers that served the Moon landing.

I always think how frustrating it must have been for Michael Collins in the Command Module, orbiting the Moon, knowing his fellow-astronauts were on the surface, and knowing he WASN'T going to be allowed to land. So near and yet so far.

That moment when Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the Moon's surface stays with me - even now the hair on the back of my neck's rising thinking about it.

[Beefster]

Science gave us the means to fly a small number of carefully-selected men to the moon. (I'm not quite sure exactly how those carefully-selected men going to the moon has benefitted us in the decades since, mind.)

The Apollo effort (in the shape of scientists, engineers and astronauts) inspired a generation of kids to pursue engineering and science in a way that no-one did before or has since. Those kids have subsequently benefited mankind in all sorts of ways since (technology, our understanding of the world/universe etc). Indirectly or otherwise, the race for the Moon has benefitted everyone.

[--------]

The Apollo effort (in the shape of scientists, engineers and astronauts) inspired a generation of kids to pursue engineering and science in a way that no-one did before or has since. Those kids have subsequently benefited mankind in all sorts of ways since (technology, our understanding of the world/universe etc). Indirectly or otherwise, the race for the Moon has benefitted everyone.


Of course it has, Beefster. I missed out a wee winky smile there. I've put it in now.

[Hibbyradge]

The Apollo effort (in the shape of scientists, engineers and astronauts) inspired a generation of kids to pursue engineering and science in a way that no-one did before or has since. Those kids have subsequently benefited mankind in all sorts of ways since (technology, our understanding of the world/universe etc). Indirectly or otherwise, the race for the Moon has benefitted everyone.

Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans, I mean astronauts ever done for me?

[--------]

Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans, I mean astronauts ever done for me?


You have a computer with which you can take part in frivolous and pointless conversations and communications instantaneously and at long distance, for a start.

[Hibbyradge]

You have a computer with which you can take part in frivolous and pointless conversations and communications instantaneously and at long distance, for a start.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

[Pretty Boy]

Apologies.

As one who sat through the first Moon landing, watching it on TV as events unfolded, I totally agree about Armstrong's courage, and the courage of Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.

I can tap into more power through my keyboard right now than was in the computers that served the Moon landing.

I always think how frustrating it must have been for Michael Collins in the Command Module, orbiting the Moon, knowing his fellow-astronauts were on the surface, and knowing he WASN'T going to be allowed to land. So near and yet so far.

That moment when Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the Moon's surface stays with me - even now the hair on the back of my neck's rising thinking about it.

No apology necessary Doddie, or from anyone else for that matter.

I wasn't intending to come over as arsey or as if I was taking the moral high ground. I just keep well out of religion/atheism/science etc debates. I enjoy reading them so if you guys fancy a debate then crack on.

[Beefster]

Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans, I mean astronauts ever done for me?

Neil Armstrong invented aqueducts. FACT.

[--------]

Neil Armstrong invented aqueducts. FACT.


And Julius Caesar played cricket for England. FACT. :greengrin

[Nuitdelune]

And Julius Caesar played cricket for England. FACT. :greengrin

No he's just signed for QPR, FACT :greengrin

[--------]

No he's just signed for QPR, FACT :greengrin


SO HE HAS! Is there no end to the man's versatility? :rolleyes:


But he DID play cricket for England - and Surrey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(cricketer)

[lyonhibs]

SO HE HAS! Is there no end to the man's versatility? :rolleyes:


But he DID play cricket for England - and Surrey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(cricketer)

Naming a son when your surname is Caesar must be one of life's little joys.