As some of you may know, Australia has a significant part in the space programme, in particular the moon landing. The vision of The first moon landing was actually received in Australia, and was sent from here to TVs around the world. There is a great movie about it, called The Dish. And, even though it is (generally) historically accurate, in typical Aussie style, it's a comedy. Great viewing. To this day, Australia is still a part of NASA's deep space tracking network, with one station just 30 min drive outside Canberra. We went there today with the kids. Without thinking, I wore a Connie rather than a Speedy

A few random photos. The first one includes some info about our role in the TV images of the moon landing - mainly because the Americans had stuffed up.....




I forgot to get a pic of the moon rock brought back by Armstrong/Aldren.

 

No speedy and no moon rock photo, come on man!! Just kidding, thanks for sharing a very cool adventure.

 

Just for you, a few of my speedies:

And one of my girls playing with my other speedy

 

Still haven't watched "The Dish"

I think @dsio had an uncle that worked at Honeysuckle Creek.
Good spot for an Aussie GTG in 2019? Any pie report from the cafeteria?

 

Didn't eat anything there.

The other thing I learnt was that NASA was in part responsible for Quartz


According to NASA
http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff/database/spinoffDetail.php?this=/spinoff//jsc/JSC-SO-51
NASA Center: Johnson Space Center
Public Release Year: 1976
Reference Number: JSC-SO-51
Category: Consumer/Home/Recreation
Origin: Apollo Missions

Abstract:
General Time Corporation, under contract to NASA, developed a quartz crystal for obtaining a stable time base from which all mission times could be derived. This later became basis of consumer clocks and watches with accuracy of one minute a year, watches useful in timing sports events as well as general use. When quartz is electrically stimulated it can vibrate millions of times a second. Since timepieces use a vibrating body to keep up time, incredibly fast vibration of a quartz crystal--up to 4,194,304 beats a second opened a new horizon in accuracy.

 

I don't reckon you thought this through before you left the house this morning. Rookie errors

 

NASA is responsible for Quartz!! No way, I guess they're still cool though.

 

Show off!! Love those pics, seems like you may have to share your Speedys when your girls get bigger.