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

kids today don't care about beatles either though.

bob marley is oddly in ascendance though.

clemenza I love the Beatles. they were creative geniuses and in the sphere of music at the time, sure they were astronauts.

but they did not risk their lives nor INVENT from whole cloth the technology they needed to *record* their albums. they did not do the impossible. the Apollo astronauts did & no amount of nostalgia & tearful love of music could convince me otherwise.

clemenza is right in a certain respect re: cultural history. I'll bet if I walk outside right now and ask the first 50 people I see, every one of them can sing me at least the chorus of at least two Beatles songs; but not more than 5% will be able to name two people who walked on the moon, what the name of the moon missions was, or when they took place.

and there are a lot of young people who dig the beatles, but I think it's kind of impossible for somebody born post moon landings to understand what it was really like to watch the first moon landing live on TV. it was a monumental event apparently but that feeling is forever lost for the rest of us isn't it? kind of a one time deal.

xp

wk: dude, space is not like going to the fucking ocean. EVERY time someone goes to the moon or mars it is a ridiculous feat of human engineering

"but they did not risk their lives nor INVENT from whole cloth the technology they needed to *record* their albums. they did not do the impossible. the Apollo astronauts did"

why no love for the nerds down at mission control??

I'm with VG here obvy

I get kinda choked up looking at my grandfather's slides of him watching the first moon landing on TV

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshuababcock/6131380150/

I'm not trying to be glib here: in the end, apparently John did risk his life pursing his chosen profession. Anyway, I'm off to see Room 237--if you're on Team Moon, that's fine. I was Apollo-crazy in 1969. What I really wonder about is what it would have been like to have walked on a Beatle. I'm thinking George may have engaged in some mystical exploration along those lines.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6206/6131380150_09d8f2d3e5.jpg

wk: dude, space is not like going to the fucking ocean. EVERY time someone goes to the moon or mars it is a ridiculous feat of human engineering

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. the thread question isn't about which is the greater technical accomplishment or milestone for all mankind. the question is which life would be more interesting to experience. kind of a question of individual genius vs. collective effort in a way.

testify, VG

neil armstrong did not invent the technology that took him to the moon

anyway, 'greatest impact on history' is a curious way to look at this q

would you rather have written the entire collected works of shakespeare or have been one of the actors in your favorite movie?

i'm shocked at how many moonies there are here....i also think alot of the responses are really fuckin' funny. keep it going!

and space is deep and all, and when you're lost it's so relentless but I feel like the earth is getting short shrift here. especially since 90% of what makes being on the moon cool is getting a good view of the earth.

― wk, woensdag 15 mei 2013 1:20 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is beautiful, mah man

I think the space race/science of the universe/techological achievements of the moon landings kind of outweigh the drug use/musical acheivement/social and cultural commentry of the Beatles.

If we had to choose an important event of the 60's, moon landing beats Sgt Peppers right?

Also you wouldn't know that being a Beatle was cool when you are being a Beatle, hindsight and stuff, but you'd know how super cool you are if you did a fricking moon walk!!!

the moon easy, by any criteria - closer to god, endless quim, scientist/pilot vs musician/actor, whatever

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

before he dies, richard branson may very well personally desecrate both the moon and the beatles, rendering both less cool.

watch interviews with apollo astronauts now, hear them talk about going to the moon. see the look in their eyes and know that no one else has what they have in their mind's eye.

you go outside on a clear night & you can *see* your "mark on history". you can point at a tangible thing that everyone can see with their own eyes and say I was there.

that is why I would walk on the moon.

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

― Koné 2013 (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol otm, i don't understand music fans sometimes.

What I've seen from the people that have been on the moon, is that life after that became this perpetual bore of having to be a guest of honour at awful parties, being dragged in by politicians for their own gain etc. It might have been awesome, but your life seems reduced to being "that guy".

"Tell us about the time you walked on the moon again!"
"Sigh, fuck's sake, alright here we go..."

There is no way, as an astronaut, you can escape being made into an eternal attraction, used and abused by politicians etc.

Now, a Beatle will always be a Beatle, no doubt, but at least they have the freedom to say "fuck you" to other people, to not play along.

I think the well-respectedness and the inescapable expectations of being a sane, wise, man who walked the moon once would fucking kill me. No matter how fucking fantastic it would be to walk on the moon.

I choose Beatle.

it's easy to take this for granted but really the moon landing's probably the human race's most astonishing accomplishment, even more incredible when you realize that it was done so FAST with technology that looks (from a 2013 perspective) as dinky as a box of tinkertoys. obv the astronauts didn't build the ships themselves but the sheer courage it must have taken to blast off into the void and walk around on another fucking planet is just beyond comparison with anything in human history. like, even columbus could've just turned the boat around. i think the onion headline 'holy shit man walks on fucking moon' sums it up pretty well.

also VG otm

u ppl

it's easy to take this for granted but really the moon landing's probably the human race's most astonishing accomplishment

Have you heard the new Daft Punk album?

buzz aldrin had a weird post-moon career, including being TV producer of OUT OF THIS WORLD about a girl with gleep powers and staring troy mcclure inspiration doug mcclure.

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

no comparison intended, just the idea of being personally (or among a small group of people) responsible for a large body of work vs. being a part of essentially a singular event that was orchestrated by many people spending immense money and human effort toward a common goal. not a perfect analogy obv.

and as much as I like the space program, I can't help but feel like there's something ultimately a little shameful about it all, as addressed by gil scott-heron for example. we can't even feed everyone on earth but we put together arguably the greatest scientific effort in human history to put a man on the moon, mostly as part of a dick waving contest with our supposed enemies. and 40 years later one of the richest guys in the world is spending his vast fortune to try to get basic malaria medication to people who need it. but hey, whitey's on the moon.

we can feed everyone on earth, we choose not to

and for similar reasons to the race for the moon, i guess

right

tbf gil scot-heron might've felt differently if it was a black astronaut on the moon

xp

well he'd have had to change the song title anyway

being a beatle sounds like hell after, like, 1964. can't go anywhere without getting mobbed, end up hating your best friends, bad trips, alcoholism, slow steady artistic decline, dumb kids bugging you for autographs and then shooting you. maybe i'd want to be lennon on the day he made out with ronnie spector.

whereas i bet almost none of the moon guys ever gets recognized on the street -- maybe aldrin does.

...

i can't even

Seems rather pointless to consider looking back on the act of walking on the moon without taking into account what that would entail in terms of a life lived but w/e.

The two 'events' don't really lend themselves towards direct comparison. Guess you could characterise them in terms of vague, broadly applicable themes and choose whatever's more your speed.

Looking back on life as a Beatle at 70

• Creativity
• Culture
• Jouissance
• Adulation
• Bigger than Jesus
• Influence
• Inspiration
• Vast Wealth
• No matter how much boomers go on about it (endlessly) future generations will never grasp or care about how pervasive Beatlemania was.
• "Who the fuck is Paul McCartney? #openingceremony"

• Science/Technology
• Discipline
• Precision
• Adventure
• Nationalism
• Cold War
• Danger
• Inspiration
• Looking at accelerating rate technological advancement yet knowing that such a feat will not be repeated in your lifetime.
• "Buzz Lightyear was the first man to walk on the moon"

I'm a realistic person, cynical to some. But I would take no personal pride in having gone the moon. What did I have to do for it? Study physics (lol yeah right), train for some years, sit in a rocket that shoots me up there, put down my footsteps in moon-dust and presto. It would not make me feel profoundly proud.

If it hadn't been me on the moon, if I had chickened out or whatever, it would have been the next person in line. Writing an oeuvre like the Beatles did is irreplacable; you can't just ask someone else to do it. So if I did that, if I was that creative, then I could indeed one day look back and think "fuck, I did alright".

all I can tell from that is that you don't actually know what any of the astronauts DID to go to the moon, or don't care

which is fine

your reasoning is crazy flawed is all

It might be interesting to take the historical aspect out of the equation and just ask yourself which of these scenarios you would choose:

NASA calls you up tomorrow and wants to send you to the moon. You have to undergo all of the training, etc. and then you get to go on a moon landing once, followed by a lifetime gig working at NASA.

vs

A major label calls you up tomorrow and wants to make you a star. They have a foolproof strategy guaranteed to make you an international musical superstar that will bring vast wealth and a career lasting well into your old age.

...

i can't even

you can't even what?

I just wish all you hand wavey moon=meh people would read one fucking book, or watch a documentary about the moon missions instead of just looking at a picture of the moon in google image search and saying yeah doesn't seem like that big of a deal whatever idgi

xpost lol JD that wasn't aimed at you it was just a general overwhelmedness

all I can tell from that is that you don't actually know what any of the astronauts DID to go to the moon, or don't care

which is fine

your reasoning is crazy flawed is all

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), woensdag 15 mei 2013 1:54 (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My reasoning is not "flawed". It is merely different from your reasoning.

If asked which life I would have preferred, having the idea I actually did something that matters to me is important to me. Writing a body of work lilke the Beatles did would fulfil me with much more satisfaction than being on the moon.

It might not be your way of reasoning, but calling it "crazy flawed" is a stretch...

xxpost NASA

I would choose NASA

haha ok, all cool

VG otm

LBI your reasoning is flawed because you made up a bunch of stuff about what you think astronauts do

i can call it another name but that's what it is. you weren't just merely expressing an opinion but laying it out like it's some kind of rational weighing up of going to the moon vs being a beatle so as such to me it is flawed because it's imbalanced

My sister lost her Wings 8 track, cuntface McCartney is on the moon.

i'm cool with ppl liking the beatles, I have no beef with the beatles

but the anti moon arguments are just handwavey garbage to me. you can tell me I choose beatles because [why the beatles are awesome] and I can accept that

but I choose the beatles because [made up things about astronauts because I don't know and don't care and don't want to know and don't want to care] annoys the living fuck out of me

going to the moon seems like hard work

fuck that shit