Today is the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 mission.

I have also been thinking about space as each evening I go out to my backyard and see the comet through my binoculars. This brings back memories of other comets I have seen through time.

The Moon landing makes me think of this coffee can that my Grandmother gave me.

Moon Landing  – President John F. Kennedy vowed the first man on the Moon would be an American, and that he would be there by 1970. Since that promise, Americans have orbited the Moon, photographed it from a height of 9 miles, analyzed soil samples through un-manned soft-landing on the Moon’s surface and selected landing sites.

The can of coffee was put on sale in 1969 between the Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 missions. I have seen a few of these on the internet and have seen them sell anywhere from 15-50 dollars. Not worth too much, but more than the original purchase price 🙂 Of course the coffee can has much more sentimental value to me.

I have the coffee can sitting in my personal home office and often will look at it as it brings back a lot of memories. Perhaps I should move it to my work home office this week so I can see it more during the day.

I do remember when astronauts were on the moon, but not the Apollo 11 mission. I was a bit too young then. I have a very vivid memory of riding to church services one evening in Ottumwa, Iowa and my parents talking about the astronauts walking on the moon as we looked up in the sky at a bright full moon.

The picture above is one that I took with my little hand held camera. Of course, it does have a nice Zeiss lens so it came out OK.

I have not tried to take a picture of the comet. I don’t have a good optical zoom on my current camera and it is needed to get a good picture. I do get a good view with my binoculars, but it looks nothing like the pictures taken with long exposure times that are being passed around on social media.

Did you know that the cameras that were flown to the moon on the Apollo missions had Zeiss lenses? There are 12 cameras with Zeiss lenses that are still on the moon as they left them behind to save weight. However, they did remember to bring the film back 🙂

I also thought about this editorial cartoon today that is about why we went to Space.

This is man’s voyage and instinct … to grope and search and reach for the heights of heaven.

I also heard in the news tonight about another SpaceX flight. It used the same rocket that sent the crew to the Space Station only 51 days ago, so had a really good turnaround time.

Do you remember when men walked on the Moon?

Steven