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

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.

Is being Klaus Voorman an option here? That dude is pretty cool.

there are no beatles song with "moon" in the title (I mean composed by them).
coincidence ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqBH-9yyQMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvL5FVFVX1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0KcgXQ2fl8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9quPcNWZE

TS: Wang Dang Sweet Poontang vs. Tang

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

Actually by the time of Apollo 17, they were camped out there for three days and spending 7 hours every day out on the surface.

that's a vacation I want to take

sounds like a drag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAC-eIuvqhg

The moon is dead
There is no life upon the moon
And it's cold even when it shines
Totally empty, no one home
The moon is dead,
The moon is dead.

^^^ catchy but not as good as the beatles IMO

I'll never get to be a Beatle, but two weeks ago I did get to walk on that volcanic plain where the astronauts trained.

wow elvis that's awesome! I love that panorama you made!

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.)

Similar yes. There are thousands who did similar thing to men walking on the moon. Lots of explorers, lots of people who hopped around on rocky surfaces, lots of people rode in really fast vessels on long journeys. Yes, no one else has walked on the fucking moon, just like no one else has been the most famous fucking band of all time.

There are thousands who did similar thing to men walking on the moon.

not really. closest thing is maybe the guys who first scaled Everest (w/out oxygen).

afaik other explorers all had access to air and gravity which are, you know, kind of a big deal

yeah. honestly i think walking on the moon is "more different" than anything else than being a Beatle is, even though being a Beatle is also a singular distinction. if being a Beatle was just like being any other rock star this wouldn't be a good question and i wouldn't have made the poll. i wasn't arguing that.

lol @ ppl getting worked up

good work treezy

thanks wins. i'm very satisfied with this thread.

Going on record here.

Walking on the moon, taken purely as experience in isolation, with no reference to what comes before or after, is radically awesome and probably ranks as near the top as one of the most amazing possible experiences for a human. If we are talking about a make-a-wish-and-snap-your-fingers-wow-it's-true scenario, then I'm there in a flash.

All but one of the moon-walking astronauts were military officers. If walking on the moon meant becoming a military officer and putting up with all that implies, then walking no the moon would have been a fleeting glory within a largely miserable existance.

Being a Beatle would not be my idea of heaven, either, tbph. At least it did not require spit and polish, regimentation, or complete subordination to a heirarchy ending in the Pentagon at a time when we were killing a couple million Vietnamese.

that's a good answer aimless. yeah, being an astronaut would mean being a military man and that would 1.) be miserable and 2.) be incompatible with my sense of "who i am" in a way that being a beatle wouldn't be.

hmm, get mountains of trim and make hundreds of millions of dollars, or walk around a closed set in culver city while teamsters shine moon lights on you. tough choice

fallen comrades c24151n & outdoorfishes never achieved this, you should feel proud xps to treefish

lol who is outdoorfishes?

you iirc

(jk!) a shortlived sock basically

well said, Aimless. though c'mon - astronauts for the most part were not just 'military men' though, that undersells it by a large margin. half of them were fucking badass PILOTS. and being a pilot flying a p-51 mustang is not the same as being 'in the military'. that's like saying dragracers are in the automobile industry.

H4A I am banning u forever

well haha let's be fair and remember what most badass pilots were doing at the time.

still moon tho.

lol do you actually believe the moon landing was faked H4A? xpost

would prefer being stanley kubrick to at least 50% of beatles.

xpost treeship: what cankles believes or doesn't believe is largely irrelevant

Being a BADASS PILOT would require me to alter my personality so far out of itself as to kill it entirely. then what would be the point?

well said, Aimless. though c'mon - astronauts for the most part were not just 'military men' though, that undersells it by a large margin. half of them were fucking badass PILOTS. and being a pilot flying a p-51 mustang is not the same as being 'in the military'. that's like saying dragracers are in the automobile industry.

huh? they had to go through military training, cut their hair, follow orders, and a couple of them served in the korean war. they were "military men" who were "in the military" by any definition of the term.