Apollo 11 celebration launches from National Mall…with a monumental display

PBS News Hour ^ | Jul 19, 2019 | Vicky Stein

[Tammy8]

There’s a 363-foot rocket ready to launch in the middle of Washington, D.C.

The life-sized animation of NASA’s Saturn V will loom above the National Mall every night this week, projected onto the Washington Monument. The after-dark light show is a gigantic tribute from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum to honor the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission that put two astronauts on the moon.

“Nothing like this had ever been done before,” said executive producer Nick Partridge of the projection.

To pull off the feat, he and co-executive producer Katie Moyer needed special permission from the U.S. Congress, buy-in from the White House, and collaboration with the Department of the Interior. Partridge and Moyer partnered with the design studio 59 Productions, best known for their work at the London Summer Olympics opening ceremony in 2012.

[Tammy8]

Maybe it is just me, but I think this is awesome! One of my daughters lives in the D.C. area and she told me about it.

[dragnet2]

Very nice tribute...

[glasseye]

Trumps fault....
/s

[usconservative]

Exceptionally cool. Thanks for the pic.

[Rio]

I like that a lot.

[freedumb2003]

Too cool:

[Innovative]

Wonderful.

Great tribute.

Thanks for sharing.

[dragnet2]

My question would be, why is this not a national holiday since this is clearly the biggest achievement or one of the biggest achievements of mankind in the history of this planet.

[Rummyfan]

Indeed - Awesome! I may drive over to see it tomorrow night.

[outofsalt]

Beats this bi 238,000 miles!

[SaveFerris]

I’m sure the liberals can find some way to hate on the President and America (oh, and honkys too).

I have confidence in them.

GREAT times those were. My folks bought a color TV for the launch.

[Yardstick]

Coolness.

The riskiness and skill of the Apollo effort is pretty amazing.

[Syncro]

Buzz Aldrin socks it to a man who called him a liar and coward.

Literally

BUZZ HAS BALLS!!!😂

A liberal douche gets his overdue reparations for calling an American hero a coward and a liar.

I like Buzz even more now.👊🇺🇸😄
pic.twitter.com/sMWOAFVftX— ALS😁1963 (ANDI)🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@HLAurora63) July 20, 2019

Click on link or date.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Remembrance of truly great achievement. The moon and Mars once seemed to be the destiny of the US - I'm not so sure anymore. It's been half a century and we've spent the time since then orbiting the earth and watching other nations catch up. China has landed on the moon and India is about to. Any real attempt to get to the moon will probably be done by private companies, not by NASA.

As for the future, a recent survey by LEGO of children in several countries found that kids in America couldn't care less about becoming astronauts - they want to be YouTube "influencers" and vloggers. The one nation where kids wanted to be astronauts over anything else? China.

American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts

[null and void]

Not me.

Posted by Drew July 17, 09 01:42 PM:

I remember that most exciting moment when the LEM set down on the lunar surface and immediately hearing the words "Cycle the Parker Valve" referring to a product designed, manufactured and supplied by the company I worked for. This along with some twelve other control products made each Apollo mission exhilarating times for all of us at the Aerospace Group of Parker Hannifin Corporation. These pictures are an incredible keepsake...

[Tammy8]

Thank you for posting pic.

[Tammy8]

It should be! We might make some other country look bad seems to be a concern now. Ugh

[Tammy8]

Thank you for posting pictures. It is awesome!

[rfp1234]

“Racist! Sexist! The monument and the rocket are white! And they are both phallic supremacist symbols!”

[Elsie]

My daughter, wife and I saw the Real Thing 50 years and 4 days ago.

We were parked along the causeway with thousands of other folks from everywhere in AMERICA!