Tag: Notre Dame

I tried to save the page for this newsletter on Archive.org several times but received an error. I’ll just cut and paste the text of the damn thing here, that way there won’t be an emotional outburst when I go back to find the thing and it’s gone here in a few years:

Notre-Dame came far closer to collapsing than people knew. This is how it was saved. The New York Times – Elian Peltier – Jul 16, 8:27 PMPARIS — The employee monitoring the smoke alarm panel at Notre-Dame cathedral was just three days on the job when the red warning light flashed on the evening of April 15: “Feu.” Fire. It was 6:18 on a Monday, the week before… BBC World Service – 13 Minutes to the Moon BBC How the first moon landing was saved. The full story of the people who made Apollo 11 happen and prevented it from going badly wrong. Theme music by Hans Zimmer. Added, go to My Music to see full list. ranthony I’ve been sitting on this podcast until the 50th anniversary day rolled around. That was Saturday. Pretty interesting podcast so far. I’m up to episode 5. Hack the Moon Hack the Moon – Jan 27’One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ But it almost didn’t happen. Apollo 11 was the mission that enabled… Full Story Astronaut Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, visited the MIT Instrumentation Lab… Why Apollo 11 Wouldn’t Have Happened Without Lyndon Johnson Texas Standard – Michael Marks – Jul 19, 8:14 AMOn Oct. 4, 1957, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, and his wife Lady Bird, were entertaining friends at their ranch in the Texas Hill Country. The Johnsons often took after-dinner walks – a habit they developed after he had a heart… How Space Exploration Provided A New Career Path For Women Texas Standard – Alexandra Hart – Jul 19, 8:55 AMParish Hirasaki was not planning on being a scientist. At least, not when she first got to Duke University. “I was sent off to college to find a husband,” Hirasaki says. “And to get a teaching degree so if god forbid anything…

The archive was finally successfully made. I know because Nuzzle has subsequently gone offline and when I went looking for the link embedded in this article on archive.org, this week was in the archive. Not much else from Nuzzle is, though.

This was the original postscript for the article published at the same date and time. Thank you Archive.org!

Listening to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe #732, they briefly got into the fact that they would be releasing that episode on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Having spent several hours on that day listening to podcasts about the historic occasion, I was jarred into putting an entry on the blog that mentions what is hands down the best podcast about the moon landings that I’ve run across so far.

It’s Thirteen Minutes to the Moon from the BBC, one of several podcast moments that I shared in the newsletter for Sunday. If you only listen to one podcast about the moon landing in your life, listen to this one:

As for the other things in the newsletter apropo to the event, wehackthemoon.com was just a cool website. It was mentioned in one of the early episodes of Thirteen Minutes to the Moon. The one about software, I’m pretty sure. All kinds of interactive stuff to do there and the only way to experience it is to click on the link and go there. The Texas Standard stories are pretty self-explanatory. Then there was this film that was advertised far and wide right before the anniversary,

I’m looking forward to getting a chance to watch that movie. Since I couldn’t do more than link the trailer, I didn’t even bother to include it in the newsletter that day. It was already getting more exposure through podcast advertising than I could ever give it by sharing the trailer.

…and that’s the way it is.

Walter Cronkite

Postscript

I remember watching the moon landings in our old TV room in that house at the corner of 3rd and N in Leoti that we called home in the 60’s and 70’s. I can remember that wood-paneled room with it’s threadbare carpet, and the static-filled reception that we got on the old black and white TV set we had back then. Everyone was crowded into the room with us kids that day. I don’t remember who all was there, but I remember being aware that this was a big moment in history because so many people wanted to be in the room with us kids while we were watching TV that day.

I really thought there would be a permanent human presence on the moon by now. It’s a shame we’ve squandered so much time not doing the important things in life and instead focused so much time and energy moving little green pieces of paper around. I’m hoping that the moon-orbiting platform finally gets built. With that in place the gateway to deep space will finally be open, as well as the moon base that we should have founded twenty years ago, at least.