Post 4 - Apollo 50
10-minute read
On July 20th, 2019, we landed on the Moon.
Again.
That’s what it felt like to me as I sat in the sweltering heat of the DC Mall with several hundred thousand other people, sharing one of the more memorable experiences of my lifetime.
To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Moon landing, 59 Productions – with the support of the Smithsonian, NASA, Boeing, and Raytheon – showed a movie on the Washington Monument!
They showed a freakin’ movie on the Monument!!!
What a beautiful, brilliant idea, and they pulled it off with a flair and drama commensurate with this once-in-a-lifetime event. This was a massive undertaking – 18 months in preparation, and requiring a literal act of Congress to proceed. Complementing the gorgeous imagery projected on screen and stone was a world-class, concert-level sound system that literally shook rib cages and raised hairs in the audience.
There was an animated “teaser” display of the Apollo 11 rocket projected on the Monument on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights (July 16, 17, and 18), with six 17-minute video presentations scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights at 21:30, 22:30, and 23:30.
Here is what it looked like on the first three nights – the first night (July 16th) corresponding with the day Apollo 11 was launched.
Keep in mind that this was a “life-size” image of the 364-foot Saturn V rocket:
To give you some perspective on size, this was shot at 66mm on my 24 – 120mm zoom lens (a middle focal length, close to what the human eye would normally see), and it was shot from a location on the mall almost 500 yards from the Monument. Here’s the location from Google Earth:
The shows I photographed and recorded on Friday and Saturday night were shot from farther back on the Mall, roughly 800 yards from the Monument:
On Tuesday night – in anticipation of the events to come – the full moon rose over the Iwo Jima Memorial near Arlington Cemetery, a sight that I couldn’t miss. Despite almost 100% cloud cover – and thanks to the sharp eye of a photographer friend who pointed out the right spot to stand – I managed to catch this brief glimpse of that event as the clouds parted for just a few fleeting moments:
Since I was so close to DC after the Iwo Jima shoot, I hopped back on the Metro and continued down to the Mall on Tuesday night, but didn’t get there until after 22:30. I only saw the teaser display on the WA Monument, and I thought I had missed the video portion (I didn’t realize at that point that it would only show on Friday and Saturday nights).
Determined not to miss this event, on Wednesday night I went back to the Mall. This time I found out about the show times, but also heard the sound check, which convinced me that I had to come back for the full presentation.
I went to the first show on Friday night (July 19th) at 21:30 EDT, and was so awestruck that I knew I had to come back for the final shows the next night. Since the last Metro train home left at 23:00, I didn’t stay for any of the later shows on Friday night.
Unfortunately, the next day was one of the hottest of the year. Here’s the thermometer in my car as I headed to the park-and-ride by the Metro station at about 17:00:
On Saturday night (July 20th, the actual day of the Moon landing in 1969), I stayed for all three shows: 21:30, 22:42, and 23:30. (The last Metro train leaves at 01:00, so I could afford to stay later).
The start of the second show was delayed by 12 minutes so that on the video, Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon – and his iconic “One small step” quote – would coincide with the timing of the actual first step on the Moon 50 years ago, namely at 22:56 EDT.
On Saturday evening, I got to the Mall early (around 18:00) to start a timelapse sequence of the crowd slowly gathering over the next 3 ½ hours.
Here’s a panorama shot of what the Mall looked like when I got there:
I staked out a spot slightly left of center so I could see the base of the Monument, as well as both screens on the sides and the display in the middle. Here’s my lonely setup before the crowds arrived:
By about 21:00, the crowd had filled in substantially (but people would continue to arrive throughout the evening):
Above: facing “forward” toward the screens and WA Monument (apologies for my tripod in the way)
Below: facing “backward” toward the Capitol Building with the Smithsonian Castle off to the right
I then recorded that show in its entirety (adding the timelapse sequence to the beginning and some close-up images of the Monument at the end), which can be seen on my YouTube Channel:
At the end of that show, a woman sitting behind me remarked, “Wow, I shed a tear….” I turned around and asked “Just one”? She laughed and admitted that, like me, it had certainly been more than one.
It’s difficult for me to express the visceral and emotive quality of this whole event, especially being a part of such a large crowd and hearing their reactions. It brought back memories of being awakened by my parents at the age of six to watch the Moon landing on TV. Honestly, I don’t remember much of the actual content of the broadcast itself, but I do remember the strong emotions that pervaded the room at that time, and that memory affected me as I watched the event “live” with so many people.
The show itself was spectacular. Meticulously planned and presented, it reviewed not only the launch, landing, and return of Apollo 11, but paid tribute to the many space-related accomplishments since then.
It featured segments of President John F. Kennedy’s stirring “moon speech” of 1962, the full text of which is linked below. I had never read the full speech before, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t either.
The audio portion – something that is unfortunately poorly conveyed by the video recording I made – was a full-spectrum body massage. The low frequency bass reverberated throughout the space, pushing enough air to rearrange my organs slightly, and the highs punctuated the action with attention-grabbing trills. The soundscape was perfectly crafted and balanced throughout the audible spectrum, with elements like the low rumble of the rockets at launch (timestamp 06:23 on the video) contrasting with the sudden – and stunningly effective – silence of space when the lunar vehicle (the “Eagle” Lunar Module connected to the Command Module that stayed in orbit around the Moon) exits the final stage of the Saturn V rocket (timestamp 08:49 on my video). Since the wall of sound had been continuous for the entire show at this point, the sudden, short silence caused a sharp intake of air, as if I had been holding my breath the whole time. The audience reacts to that moment with cheers, appreciating – I think – the “sound of silence” as much as the moment in the story.
That night several elements came together to form a “more perfect union” – including a celestial light show to rival the one on the ground. As you can see from the opening timelapse portion of my video, voluminous clouds had been massing in the southwest all afternoon. In fact, I was concerned that the shows would be rained-out because the clouds looked so ominous, but the rain held off and gave us some stunning, electric fireworks instead.
There were several peak moments throughout the presentation – here are some close-up stills of the projection onto the Monument that I managed to capture during the second show on Saturday night:
Above: at timestamp 02:18 in my video recording, JFK was recapping the last 50,000 years in human history (as compressed into a 50-year timespan), and at this point he mentions that humans had learned how to wrap themselves in the skin of animals.
Above (timestamp 02:22): “man emerged from his caves”
Above (timestamp 02:27): “man learned to write”
Above (timestamp 02:38): “the printing press came to be”
Above (timestamp 02:43): “the steam engine provided a new source of power”
Above (timestamp 02:50): “Newton explored the meaning of gravity”
Above (timestamp 02:50): “electric lights….became available”
Above (timestamp 02:59): “we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power”
Above (timestamp 03:12): “and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight”
Above (timestamp 05:05): “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked”
Above (timestamp 05:12): a view of the Saturn V rocket on the Launchpad with a rosy sky in the background
Above (timestamp 06:19): T minus 4 seconds – ignition sequence started at T -8 seconds, and we’re just starting to see the flames billow out from beneath the rocket at T -4
Above (timestamp 06:34): Altitude 169 feet, with vapor streaming off the body of the rocket
Above (timestamp 07:30): Altitude 71,975 feet, showing the beautiful vortex of flame in the rocket’s contrail
Above (timestamp 08:49): that stunning moment of sudden silence in the show I mentioned above – note the diagram in the lower right shows the relative position of the spacecraft on its way to the Moon
Above (timestamp 11:45): Day 4 – the Eagle and the Command Module re-emerge from radio “blackout” after their orbit around the dark side of the Moon
Above (timestamp 13:15): Day 5 – CAPCOM had confirmed all stations were “go” for a powered descent to the Moon, but minutes before landing, the infamous “PROG 1202” computer error popped up on monitors in the Eagle. As it turned out to be related to computer memory overloads, the necessary data (range to landing site and velocity) was radioed from Houston, and the mission was not aborted.
Above (timestamp 14:02): Touchdown on the Moon!
At timestamp 14:09: “Tranquility Base, here – the Eagle has landed”. As those iconic words were spoken (at 102 hours and 46 minutes into the mission), there is a flash of lightning off to the right to punctuate the event. What timing! What a night!
Above (timestamp 15:00): at and 22:56 EDT in 2019 – 50 years later, to the minute – we hear those unforgettable words that are imprinted on the minds of millions since then: “That’s one small step for ‘a’ man, one giant leap for mankind”.
Although it’s not audible on the original recording, Neil Armstrong claimed that the infamous “a” was lost in the transmission, and additional research on the audio in 2006 seems to have vindicated him:
https://www.space.com/17307-neil-armstrong-one-small-step-quote.html
Above (timestamp 17:59): Re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere
Above (timestamp 18:22): Splashdown!
Above (timestamp 18:50): #GoForTheMoon!
The following images (added to the end of my video) were downloaded from NASA’s website, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum website, and from 59 Productions’ Twitter feed.
The 59 Productions photos appear to have been taken by a camera mounted on the roof of the Smithsonian Castle. It looks like these were taken on Friday evening since the central display (with the mission times and other info) is in the middle of the field. By Saturday, that display unit had been moved up and to the right, putting it closer to the audience and off-center enough that you could see the base of the Monument from the middle of the field.
To give you some perspective, I’ve drawn a blue circle on the first photo below around the approximate area where I sat on Saturday night:
From the 59 Productions Twitter feed….
From the 59 Productions Twitter feed….
From the 59 Productions Twitter feed….
The photo above (also from 59 Productions’ Twitter feed) appears to have been taken from the Press area at the back of the main crowd
The following photos were downloaded from the various NASM and NASA resources shown at the bottom of the page:
Additional resources:
Here is a link to the official video on the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s website (it’s obviously higher resolution and more professionally done than mine):
The Apollo 11 photos included above and in my video were downloaded from various Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and NASA sites, including these:
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/how-we-saw-moon-top-ten-apollo-images
https://airandspace.si.edu/albums/apollo-11-images
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/
A “behind the scenes” video of the production on the Smithsonian NASM YouTube Channel:
"Apollo 50: Go for the Moon" Behind-the-Scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeS_AfUG5y0
Adam Savage (Mythbusters) has a great “making of” video – and he’s even sporting a natty tux at the start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxh6rVrpTnA
The text of JFK’s full “Moon speech”:
https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm
Some beautiful images of the show, including some interesting perspectives shot from the side of the WA Monument, done by a photographer from the Baltimore Post Examiner, Mike Jordan, who I met on Wednesday evening, and then hooked up with again on Saturday night for the first show:
http://www.mpjordan.com/news/2019/7/22/go-for-the-moon-remembering-mankind-first-steps-on-the-moon
A shaky but informative YouTube video showing the audio/visual setup used by 59 Productions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E7cjBsYPuY
Here is an interesting backstory on the preparations involved:
https://wamu.org/story/19/07/22/moon-landing-projection-brings-crowd-of-500000-to-the-mall/
Thanks for reading my story! Check out my next blog post on the Presidents Heads!
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