The John Batchelor Show

Brief

"We're number 1 on the runway."

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Walter Cronkite, November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009  

The sweetest remembered moment on this montage is when Walter Cronkite, whose death at 92 was announced within this news cycle, takes off his glasses to announce the Eagle has landed.  Later, "...Neil Armstrong, 38 year-old American, standing on the surface of the moon on this July 20th, Nineteen hundred and Sixty-Nine."   Walter Cronkite's death, coming at the 40th anniversary of the landing, underscores for me how much history has packed itself in the last four decades.   I was curious about what history was when I watched Walter Cronkite take off his glasses and react with glee and relief.  Now I take mine off and think, history is the part where something happens.   "Like the high desert of the United States.  It's different but it's very pretty out here..."   I do enjoy watching the lift-off from Earth, the lost magic of Saturn V,  and then from the moon in the LEM lifeboat: "Roger, understand we're number one on the runway."  Nice wit from Buzz Aldrin.

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