Members of the Kennedy Space Center control room team rise from their consoles with nervous anticipation to witness Neil Armstrong’s landing of Eagle, the lunar module, on the surface of the moon in July 1969.
Armstrong would later reflect that landing was by far his biggest concern, saying “the unknowns were rampant,” and “there were just a thousand things to worry about.”
While the tiny, fragile Apollo lunar lander descended rapidly to the Moon’s surface, its guidance computer disturbed the crew with several unexpected alarms. Including a 1202, which they had never simulated in training.
Turns out they had overshot the planned landing zone. The Eagle was coming in ‘long’ or downrange, overshooting the predicted landing zone.
Just after Buzz Aldrin calls out the altitude, “700 feet”, Armstrong replies: “Pretty rocky area.” They were confronted with a crater field and boulders measuring 10-15 feet across, so Armstrong leveled off at about 400 feet to find a better spot to land.
With a rapidly diminishing fuel supply, they would soon reach the 60-second mark when they would have to abort the mission.
“We heard the call of 60 seconds, and a low-level light came on. That, I’m sure, caused concern in the control center,” Aldrin recalled. “They probably normally expected us to land with about two minutes of fuel left. And here we were, still a hundred feet above the surface, at 60 seconds.”
Just after Armstrong asks “Okay, how’s the fuel?” and Aldrin replies “Eight percent”, Amstrong declares “Okay. Here’s a…looks like a good area here.”
In the final seconds of the white-knuckle descent, the four-legged lunar module made it to the dusty surface.
Aldrin: “Contact Light.” That meant at least one of the probes hanging from three of the craft’s footpads had touched the surface – they had landed on a site they would call “Tranquility Base”.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here,” said Armstrong. “The Eagle has landed.”
“Roger, Tranquility. We copy you down,” came the reply from Charlie Duke in mission control. “You got a bunch of guys down here about to turn blue.”
part of the reason i like tumblr and i think part of the reason it has the unhinged je nai se quois that it does, is that unlike pretty much every other public social media platform these days, it allows for the “unpalatable weird” without any chance of it making it back to a professional regular adult or the creator of media in any capacity. on twitter, even if you’re using an alt account, the guy who writes the book is there and might see your post (here, neil gaiman is here, but hes like, cool about it - the tumblr etiquette has always been that they are in our house, and not vice versa), and the only person who can be deranged under their own name is ppl who dont worry about professional consequences.
i had more to say about this but im getting tired but tldr: im a corporate lawyer and tumblr is the only place im not worried about my employer finding out how much i post about wizards, and i think that mindset is why tumblr is Like This - because its a social space where ppl who have something to lose (professional dignity) can be weird about wizards.
My copy of @drchucktingle’s book Camp Damascus has arrived! (The publishers were kind enough to send me an advanced copy when I mentioned that I had ordered a copy but time was not kind to me as it was Finish Good Omens and Wrap Things Up Before the Strike world, and I had no personal reading time. So I’m really looking forward to settling down to read it.)
let it be known that @neil-gaiman has been a true buckaroo from DAY ONE. always accepted my unique way and understood the sincerity of my trot and my art. thank you neil i appreciate you so much bud. i am humbled and honored by your support through the years. a buckaroo legend
Okay. Having now launched Tumblr on desktop, I see it. My thoughts:
1. If you’re primarily a mobile user (Which I imagine most people are? Actually I’d love to know the data on that…) you don’t care about any of this anyway. You’re accessing Tumblr the same way you (presumably) access(ed) Twitter and you can be gently amused and/or baffled at all the rest of us.
2. My big beef with the desktop layout is the recommended and radar content. Back when Xkit still worked, I had all of this turned off. Especially because I pay for ad-free, I really, really, really do not want to see shit I’m not asking to see @staff. I wanted and still want a peer review system in my social media experience, which is to say I want to see what my mutuals and the blogs I follow are into. If I’m looking for new content, I will seek it out. I really don’t need it shoved in my face.
3. The layout change bothers me less in terms of appearance, but that’s because I am, admittedly, already used to Twitter’s desktop interface, which I use quite a bit for research. However, the lack of immediate access to my sideblogs seems like a downgrade. Additionally, I’m not wild about being on a Twitter clone in my down time. Have Tumblr CEOs not clocked that Twitter is currently failing hard?
“Inner Fire”, this is an actual picture of the state that drives me! It’s a repeatable, begun in 2020, that is now discontinued. So, if you were planning to maybe one day buy it… MothyAndTheSquid.com
