I loved how they chose to film the Apollo 11 launch in First Man - in other films and documentaries we're all pretty used to seeing the power and majesty of the Saturn V lifting off from outside, with the camera footage and all... First Man flipped it around to be more from Armstrong's perspective inside the command module, showing just how dark and claustrophobic and shakey and overwhelming it must have been from the perspective of the actual astronauts. o..o

*nodsnodsnods* Yeah, I love that. It really gives you an impression of how much of a fine line it was between flying apart and actually succeeding. Earlier in the movie, his launch in Gemini is even more intense; again, you get a very clear impression that they had not figured out how to make it a smooth thing yet and were still learning.

Another interesting aspect of that (which we don't quite appreciate today) is how INSANELY advanced that cockpit must have looked to them. The LED digital displays used for some of the read-outs were brand new then - almost completely unknown, unseen by anyone yet. The SSD LEDs (Seven Segment Displays) seen in the Columbia cockpit were literally only invented 1 year prior to the mission. So imagine looking up at all those switches, a computer in the cockpit and digital read-outs; something no other vessel had. To most today it looks old, but for them, it was further proof of just how bleeding edge they had to go to pull off that feat.

Yeah.... it was a really well done film that way. :) And yeah, while the cockpits don't look particularly high tech compared to what we think of today, the entire space programme was so cutting edge. So much technology we now take for granted Earthside was developed because of the push to get into space. :)

*nodsnods* Absolutely incredible time for surges in technology, but also (surprisingly) environmentalism. People seeing Earth as the tiny blue marble floating alone in space changed the view of many governments, who enacted things like emissions standards for cars and many EPA programs to start taking care of our little planet. It moved people in a way nothing else ever had before, or has since. I just find it disgusting that today that so many people in power have become so massively apathetic about things that we're going backwards now.

*nodnodnodnods* I still kind of feel like if I became God Emperor of the entire world, one of my edicts would be to make it mandatory that all global citizens sit down and listen to Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' speech like... once a month or something. Maybe once a week for heads of state and leaders of large corporations, with a 500 word essay on how their actions during the previous week have aligned with those values. >..>

*chuckles* I doubt that would work. Two big things I think need to change:

1) Don't allow rich people to be in government.

2) Make sure government consists of at least 51% scientists to ensure actual, intelligent choices are being made.

*nodnods* As it is now most of the decisionmakers are the people who were best equipped to force their way into those positions of power, rather than being well-equipped to actually handle the decisions responsibly. And yeah, it's kind of hard to be in science and feel 'relevant'... doing science and publishing results is good and all, but it feels mostly so far-removed from policymaking most of the time that it's pretty frustrating.

*nodsnods* Very frustrating, yes. Unfortunately, I don't know what's going to be needed to bring about the massive change required to fix it. The current issue of the rich and self-serving ruling humanity has existed pretty much for the entirety of our 12,000 years of civilization.

*nods* given that scale I can't really see it going away entirely anytime soon, but I'm going to keep fighting. And both the threat from climate change and the grossly increasing nature of the inequality at least seem to be getting more and more people to stand up and try to push back.

Mmmhmm - pushing back is all we can do, and keep doing, until this insanity is behind us.