"We came in peace for all mankind" 40 years ago this night

[thatcrazycajun]

At 10:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time on Sunday, July 20, 1969, Neil Alden Armstrong and Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. became the founding members of an exceedingly exclusive club: the first two of only a handful of human beings to have walked upon the surface of Earth's moon, Luna, and returned alive to tell the tale, while a breathless world watched in awe and admiration.

Tonight, the History Channel debuted a brand-new docudrama called Moonshot in honor of the occasion, featuring Daniel Lapaine as the young Armstrong and James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Smallville fame) as Aldrin. Mixing authentic Apollo XI footage and media coverage with recreated scenes, the story depicts the mission the two of them and US Air Force Major General Michael Collins undertook to fulfill the late John F. Kennedy's pledge to put Americans on the moon by the end of that decade. It is fully on par with Ron Howard's excellent film Apollo 13 in accuracy, entertainment value and verisimilitude, and I highly recommend watching it when it repeats or purchasing the DVD.

Only five more teams of astronauts visited the moon after them; now, four decades after the first, our government plans to return at long last. May that plan come to fruition as swiftly and surely as did the fateful mission we remember today.

Comments

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

James Marsters as Buzz Aldrin? Spike as Buzz Aldrin?!?

Okay, that adds to the already existing reasons I have to see this.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Personally, I find it amusing that on its day of Moon pictures, TCM's showing Capricorn One, notable for a substantial OJ Simpson acting appearance and it being about a government faked Mars mission.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

If you call that "acting". Johnny Cochran should have presented Capricorn One as evidence that his client was simply incapable of putting on a convincing innocent act.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

less sense than Chewbacca? :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Wonder if they did as well as the 1994 "Moon Shot" with Barry Corbin subbed in for the already-passed Deke Slayton...

I don't know if I can get my head around Spike playing Buzz.

As for going back? I wanna go back. I do NOT want to ride jumped-up 1970's mankilling political boondoggle tech to get there. Nope. I want something built for the love, not the money (although making a profit does make it much easier, having it done by people who would do it for the love anyway is SO much better), and something you can TURN OFF if it develops a problem. Government has now proven twice they can't do this right (once with the Shuttle, the second time with giving the go-ahead to build more stuff based on old Shuttle $#!+, err, tech... get'em outta here. Let Burt do it. He's already got plans...

[boogiebabe-smap.livejournal.com]

Watched the show and found it quite enjoyable. I do remember the entire Space Race, especially how excited we were watching this mission. I think my parents still have the newspapers from that day and my grandmother did an embroidery piece featuring the moon walk and Armstrong's quote.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

I said my piece at my LJ.