Christmas is coming....

Soon it will be CHRISTMAS!

Other than the fantastic birth of Christ....

Christmas often reminds me of the flight of Apollo 8, the one that first orbited the moon, but did not land. We saw it on TV, and loved it all, all around Christmas of 1968.

Here is the link:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo8_xmas.html

Then, it all led up to Apllo 11....the first manned moon landing, in July of 1969...

I was fishing that day, the lunar landing, off a pier in Long Beach, Calif. I caught a Bonito fish, a tuna looking sorta thing...but I did see the landing on TV:

Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) .................................and a Flying Boy.

The test vehicle to teach the moon pilots on Earth how to fly a LEM on the moon....a tricky thing in Earth's heavier gravity. I saw this thing a few years ago at NASA in California. It was sort of sitting off to the side of a building outside, and surrounded by desert dirt and shrubs. I believe it now indoors.

On the moon, Apollo 11, LEM.

If I don't catch ya later, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

--Dan