Would you rather have been a Beatle, or have walked on the moon?

<3

or, alternately, you could have a panic attack/ptsd flashback every time you look at the moon, as you remember how vulnerable you felt that far from your home planet...

I must confess I did grin when buzz aldrin punched out that moon hoax conspiracy nut.
But I would be sad if that nut turned out to be nardwuar

if paul mccartney punched narduwar i would not grin

or, alternately, you could have a panic attack/ptsd flashback every time you look at the moon, as you remember how vulnerable you felt that far from your home planet...

From my point of view... total bullshit.

Tempted by Beatles - though rich people generally do it wrong, the freedom of hundreds of millions of dollars to just travel constantly and indulge in whatever hobbies or interests might come along is hard to pass up. OTOH, being as rich as Paul McCartney seems like it would only be fun if you were relatively anonymous. No stalkers, divorce drama, possible shootings.

First to walk on the moon - you're not going to die penniless, you'll still have massive pull with the ladies and you got to experience something only a few other people ever have and no one had before.

Moon wins.

if paul mccartney punched narduwar i would not grin

Would love to see McCartney punch out a "Paul is dead" conspiracy theorist.

itt people get emotional about space (i believe in)

if the Beatle fame experience had been better, the answer might change - a band that was important and got to tour and play live for 20-30 years. Neil Young would be a harder call, or even a Rolling Stone

xpost Hey the Beatles wanted to do "Clockwork Orange"

did not know this and looked it up and i guess they wanted to score it and mick jagger wanted to be alex? which, still wow, but i assumed you meant that the beatles had wanted to play the droogs which would have been ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING

being a rolling stone in 2013 would be bleak, come on. they are my favorite band and i am saying this. better to be ringo than keith. xpost

paul mccartney punching nardwuar is making me lol so much

Nardwuar: hey buzz! I have a present for you!
Buzz: is ... is that the golden record from the voyager mission?
Nardwuar: va-voom!

No disrespect to Gil Scott-Heron, but the dough would not have been used for that if there had been no space program. Trust me.

no of course it wouldn't have! but that's the thing, sending a man to the moon represents the pinnacle of mankind reaching for the impossible. but then at the same time as beautiful and romantic as it is, it also kind of represents the ultimate failure of imagination. we're all resigned to the fact that making things better here on earth is impossible.

Going to start a "Would you rather have been a Vanilla Fudge, or have climbed Mount Everest?" thread tomorrow. Not optimistic it will get much response.

how many people could we have fed, tho, if we didn't buy any beatles records

"In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion." pretty sure that the total gross revenue of the beatles corporation is some number lower than that.

Would you rather have been on Apollo 13 or been a member of Badfinger?

'deep space homer' is better than that b-sharps episode

I think a lot of the space vs. beatles stuff itt loses sight of the fact that the question in the OP doesn't demand an opinion that casts any kind of judgement on the two occupations. it's just a personal preference. as a musician I would pick the life that involves music every time. to be totally honest I would choose to be a member of the dave matthews band or some shit over an apollo astronaut any day, because that's the lifestyle for me and I have no interest in science, math, the military, bureaucracy, danger, adventure, etc.

this poll is not about whether you'd prefer to be a Beatle or walk on the moon

Would you rather be a member of Sonic Youth or have walked across the United States?

wk you should play the first concert...

...on the moon

on acid?

you'll never listen to surf music again

hear, fuck

a slowly gnawing six-minute doubt that one was

This was a really easy "Beatles" for me. I barely lasted a year as a science major in undergrad.

I'm biased. My college life was spent mostly as an astrophysicist... and most often I'm the one reviving the astronomy threads.

as a musician I would pick the life that involves music every time

As a musician I would pick WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON.

(Explicit Lyrics)

- The Police

As a musician I would pick WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON.

that's not one of the options though

Its true. You can't choose to walk on the moon now, but you can choose to have walked on it 40 something years ago. A subtle distinction.

Walking on the moon, cos in space, no-one can hear the Beatles

On the other hand, the question doesn't actually seem to require that you live the exact life of Buzz Aldrin - you just "have walked on the moon." Maybe they stow you away and then you get to go about your business as you like. Whereas you actually have to be a Beatle, which is a rougher trade. I could dig being Ringo at this point, but John and George both died young and all of them seem to have gone through extensive, ugly bummer periods, in large part drug-related and, I just dunno.

Its true. You can't choose to walk on the moon now, but you can choose to have walked on it 40 something years ago. A subtle distinction.

right, you get to have a 70 year old's memory of something that happened for 7 hours tops over 40 years ago.

Yeah but also you would have been an American hero throughout your life and you are part of a very elite group, bc only several people have done what you did.

nobody here is saying they would do it for the heroism though. they're just saying "WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON."

I don't buy that as a motivating factor -- if it was, can I interest you in being part of the elite squad that raided bin laden?

Lol i wonder if kathryn bigelow would choose that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqm4BVFYHd8

you are part of a very elite group, bc only several people have done what you did.

People who walked on Moon - 12
Beatles - 4*

*ok 6 but who the fuck wants to be Pete Best or Stuart Sutcliffe?

Would you rather have been a 5th Beatle, or the guy who stayed in the capsule while the other guys walked on the moon?

Michael Collins is a cool dude, I'd be okay being him

Wouldn't really want to have been one of the dudes who got shot either.

Yeah there are 4 beatles but thousands of known, accomplished musicians. The Beatles are a singular entity bc of their historical importance, but what they did is similar to what a lot of other people do, even if you think theyre the greatest band ever ( i do not, but i like them.)

The average age of a moon walker was almost 40 - that's a lot of pre-moon time being a military pilot/engineer type while everyone else was getting off their faces and listening to the Beatles.

Yeah there are 4 beatles but thousands of known, accomplished musicians. The Beatles are a singular entity bc of their historical importance, but what they did is similar to what a lot of other people do, even if you think theyre the greatest band ever ( i do not, but i like them.)

yeah, but I would pick the life of almost any of those other musicians over being an astronaut.

wk speaks for many of us there

Oh i'm with you wk. just trying to clarify the "stakes" of this question.