I remember the first moon landing.

Yesterday. (That's Thursday, 2/22/24) The intuitive machines Odysseus Moon Lander touched down on the moon near the South Pole. This is history for a couple of reasons. First, because it's been over 50 years since the last US touchdown, and 2nd. Because this is the first moon landing of any project from Private enterprise. 

I was watching this on TV yesterday for a little while and I started to think about the first time that man walked on the moon. I was 16 years old. I honestly don't remember where I was, but I do remember watching the TV and seeing this Live broadcast (in black and white). It was amazing that the event was broadcast by the three major television networks. ABC, NBC and CBS. (no cable news yet) I think I was watching CBS because I remember Walter Cronkite being overcome with emotion.  

It would have been at about 1:18 PM Pacific Time. When they announced that “the eagle has landed”. At 8:56 pm. Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. It almost felt like a little bit of science fiction taking place live right in front of me on the TV. 

Yesterday I felt that feeling again. I hope we'll get more information on how successful the soft landing was. (like how soft was it?) It's good that we're getting telemetry from the Lander, but I haven't heard anything about it since the first announcement. 

Odysseus is carrying several. Experiments. Being conducted by private enterprise. And more experiments funded by NASA. Here's hoping that it all works. Odysseus will be in the sunlight for about a week and then it will go back into the shade and they're figuring that the electronics of the lunar Lander will eventually fail in the intense cold. They say next time they do this they'll have a heater in it. (do ya think?) 

According to a Company Announcement. data was beginning to stream in approximately 2 hours after the landing. 

UPDATE

The news this weekend gives us a little more clarity on exactly what happened with the Odysseus Moon Lander. When it touched down on the moon on Thursday. USA TODAY is reporting that. The Lander was descending a little too fast and was also moving laterally about two feet per second when it touched down. Technicians are summarizing that at that point, when the Lander touched down, it caught one of its six legs on a rock and tipped over. 

Intuitive machines now say that they hope to get some photos so that they can see exactly what happened. Cofounder of Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus says. “Odysseus has quite a bit of operational capability, even though we're tipped over," 

https://apnews.com/article/moon-landing-private-company-intuitive-machines-9c896bfca61582773d381f4045fd35d7