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Author
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Topic: Most significant human spaceflight event
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LM-12
Member Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 12-22-2015 09:04 AM
  
It is an interesting comment from an interesting man who played key roles in both missions. |
SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 4437
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 12-22-2015 09:45 AM
...but, as I say, 100 years from now, historians may say Apollo 8 is more significant; it's more significant to leave than it is to arrive. That's all. Find myself in disagreement with Collins when benchmarked as a technical achievement. Attaining escape velocity was far less significant then the challenges of safely landing/operating/departing from the surface of another world. |
Rusty53
Member Posts: 50
From: Rochester, NY USA
Registered: Jun 2010
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posted 12-22-2015 11:51 PM
In my opinion it was Apollo 11 because of the affect it had on the human soul when we actually touched another world for the first time. |
Mike Dixon
Member Posts: 1397
From: Kew, Victoria, Australia
Registered: May 2003
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posted 12-23-2015 02:57 AM
11 hands down in my opinion. For the time they were out there, the best photography (killed a few other missions who stayed longer) but a pivotal moment in time. |
Philip
Member Posts: 5952
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 12-23-2015 03:28 AM
It's not in your list: servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. |
Ted
Member Posts: 32
From: UK
Registered: Sep 2014
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posted 12-23-2015 05:27 AM
Has to be Vostok 1. |
ejectr
Member Posts: 1751
From: Killingly, CT
Registered: Mar 2002
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posted 12-23-2015 08:10 AM
You can say Vostok 1 or any of the others that came before Apollo 11, but the goal was the moon. It was our goal and it was the USSR's goal.Apollo 11... hands down. Anything before was practice and learning. Anything after hasn't touched it. |
Gonzo
Member Posts: 596
From: Lansing, MI, USA
Registered: Mar 2012
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posted 12-23-2015 11:39 AM
quote:
Originally posted by LM-12:
What do you think is the most significant event in manned spaceflight history?
As some of you know me and my fondness for Apollo 11, you'd expect me to say that mission is the most singularly significant event. But I'm not going to. To me, it's a tie that's hard to split. Pardon me for getting philosophical here, but as the question was asked, it's really a philosophical question that can only be truly answered from philosophical viewpoint. Vostok was important, and significant, but it still limited us to our own small part of the cosmos. Both Apollo 11 and Apollo 8 deserve very high marks for a single mission because they broke those bounds. So in that respect, Vostok was a stepping stone to a bigger reality. Apollo 8 was significant because it was the first time we, as humans, left our world. The reading of Genesis from the moon with the Earthrise as a setting, was also socially significant (particularly so for the Christian based western world) because it put in perspective, for the first real time for everyone (both Christian and non-Christians alike) the smallness of our part of the universe. It was one of those defining moments for mankind. Apollo 11 on the other hand allowed us to actually step on another world for the first time and safely return to our home. That to me will always be a major mark in human history. So both missions are significant to human history. I'm sure others will point out that Vostok may be bigger to the Russians, or that the ISS is more significant because it is "international" and aimed at international space cooperation (ignoring that it is a series of events, not a single defining moment in history as the question asks). But if you look at the question from a HUMAN perspective, disregarding any political and religious ties, Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 would be at the top of anybody's list. By any definition, they are the biggest significant single events on their own in human space flight history. Which one is more significant is up for debate. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 12-23-2015 12:14 PM
It was on this day in 1968 that we saw, for the first time, those grainy, black and white images of the distant Earth during a live television transmission from Apollo 8 as it headed for the moon. Remember that odometer on the screen? |
Cozmosis22
Member Posts: 968
From: Texas * Earth
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 12-23-2015 01:46 PM
Apollo XVII when we said goodbye to the moon, apparently to never return. Here we are some 43 years later and still no real plans to go back. |
star51L
Member Posts: 340
From: Vilano Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 12-23-2015 05:56 PM
Hard to pick one over the other as most significant, so I'll leave it at this: to me, Apollo 11 was the most dramatic, Apollo 8 was the most magical. |
AstronautBrian
Member Posts: 287
From: Louisiana
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 12-23-2015 09:44 PM
In my opinion, I'd have to say Apollo 11. From all that I've read and studied of the early space program, that moment when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon was the sum of all of the efforts - the climax. I guess it can be argued that the subsequent Apollo landings, Skylab, the Shuttle, and the ISS are pretty anti-climatic, remarkable achievements that they are. To be the first to set foot on another world other than Earth is the ultimate, only to be equaled by a mission to Mars or asteroid.Apollo 8 is a close second not only for the achievement, but for being the one great thing to come out of a very bad year. Then there is the other firsts, such as Vostok 1. My two pence. |
oly
Member Posts: 905
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2015
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posted 12-23-2015 11:26 PM
For me there are three events that stand out. Al Shepard, sitting on top of a converted weapon to be fired skyward without an ejection seat, operable hatch or window took some courage, Apollo VIII rounding the back side of the moon for the first time loosing all contact with earth and Apollo XI from PDI to touchdown, the first EVA on another surface and the assent thru to rendezvous with Columbia.All of these are unknown never before done events that previous missions had not tried. As the progress for each successive mission was an extension of previous missions, these 3 missions were in fact firsts. Taking nothing away from the astronauts that ventured out on missions between Shepard and Apollo XI. Missions post these have been look back on as becoming routine. Following close by Young and Crippen on the first Shuttle flight. Launching in a totally new, never flown concept took some bold brass units too. Even if they had ejection seats that had an extremely small operational window. |
moorouge
Member Posts: 2454
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 12-24-2015 03:02 AM
My vote goes to Apollo 9. This flight laid the foundations for what was to come and the procedures developed paved the way not only for the '11' landing but also the successful conclusion to the '13' mission. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 12-24-2015 07:01 AM
James Lovell mentions in this 2008 Chicago Tribune article what Charles Lindbergh said to him about the Apollo 8 flight. Eight months after the Apollo 8 mission, NASA asked Jim Lovell to escort aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh at Cape Canaveral as Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crew blasted off for the moon on July 16, 1969.As he was marveling to Lindbergh about the historic import of the event, Lindbergh stopped him, Lovell said. "You know, Apollo 8, to me that was the high point of the space program, because it was the first time humans traveled outside the pull of Earth's gravity," he said Lindbergh told him. "You were the pioneers of this. Landing on the moon is just the icing on the cake." |
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