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

yay! :)

tl;dr coming up, just need to get words out of my head in general

the way I feel about being someone who has a memory of walking on the moon, that's a thing I've wanted since I was a kid. the post-walk life of an astronaut is def exhausting, as Neil Armstrong's retreat from public life clearly showed. though it's kind of a nice thing that he was able to be so reclusive and still die as a hero to many who grew up just accepting that they would never really see him in public ever again. people seemed okay with that. but for me, man I would take a lifetime of being asked the same questions over and over again because there was a memory that I had inside of me that was a vision of something only a handful of people ever saw in their lifetime. it's not so much being the national hero and the glory of going to space but standing on that celestial body with your own two feet, looking up into space from the moon as we would look up into the sky from earth... maybe I sound like a weird weepy spacenerd but that means a lot to me, the thought of living your whole life with that experience.

and as an aside: being an astronaut back then, or even now, isn't like being a jockey on a racehorse or being a racecar driver. especially with the apollo missions, and gemini and mercury etc, those astronauts were the best in their field, working with engineers who were the best in their field, and they were all hired to work together to achieve something no one had done before. the astronauts weren't just jocks in silver suits. they tested and studied and problem-solved too. it's like, I dunno...working to build a car and then driving it further than anyone's driven before. multiply that x 1000. there's no way that someone that involved in the process from the beginning doesn't feel a sense of pride in an achievement like that. to me, anyway.

MOON all the way. SPACE, the final frontier!

I don't even like the Beatles that much. I really like space, though. Space is the place.

this is a good question

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

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.

yeah but more generally if the cold war didn't happen, all the money that would have gone to that -- which includes military and space program spending -- might have gone toward building a stronger public infrastructure, which seemed to be something the public had more interest in in the immediate post-war period as compared to now. maybe this could be a thread, but alternate history speculation isn't always the most fruitful thing.

also, i want to say thank you to everyone for your contributions to this, my first poll. i think it's been an interesting discussion.

I was somewhat blunt in my portrayal of the post-walk life of an astronaut. If I came across as downplaying the achievement and technological progress, I did not intend to. But with what you just said in mind, pairing it with the poll question, I think what it boils down to for me is: I don't want to be a hero in people's eyes, and that technical progress is not something I would feel very proud of. I don't want to be that person considered unique as a consequence from a space program. I would love the experience of being on the moon, but I don't think it is something I would want to be reduced to for the rest of my life. And that is what people will do to an astronaut, definitely. Now I know McCartney is still reduced to "he was a Beatle", inevitably, but I feel it's much easier to pull yourself away from that image.

"Standing on that celestical body with your own two feet".. Sing it sister! I would definitely adore that, obviously. It's not weepy spacenerd at all to me, it is awesome and it is awesome to want this or dream about it!

Maybe it's just because astronauts are such awfully righteous and "ok" folks, always walking the line. I could not ever do that, would not want to be that way. It would be a curse, a pox, on that once in a lifetime experience of walking on the moon.

it's like, I dunno...working to build a car and then driving it further than anyone's driven before

But baby, you can drive my car! :-)

that was an xp to VG

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

is the movie SHOT ON THE MOON

This question is unnervingly keeping me occupied tonight, Treeship. Equal parts of well done, thank you and fuck you ;-)

tbh I'm pissed at treeship for this stupid reductive question

:)

VG poll: would you rather go to the moon or fuck you

Why could that astronaut at the ISS not have played a fucking Beatles song instead of Space Oddity...

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

*hadn't bought

YOLO

i think i've spent less than $50 altogether on beatles records in my life and i have ten of them or something.

there's an awful lot of you tho!

i have another nabokov telegram for this thread, weirdly, but i promise that as far as i know nabokov only sent two telegrams about the moon. it's lol cuz the last sentence is posts very much in character:

TREADING THE SOIL OF THE MOON STOP PALPATING ITS PEBBLES STOP TASTING THE PANIC AND SPLENDOR OF THE EVENT STOP FEELING IN THE PIT OF ONE'S STOMACH THE SEPARATION FROM TERRA STOP THESE FORM THE MOST ROMANTIC SENSATION AN EXPLORER HAS EVER KNOWN STOP THE UTILITARIAN RESULTS DO NOT INTEREST ME STOP

Nabokov telegrams <3

i loved the nabokov quote about being afraid of neil armstrong making a wisecrack, because you know that if they sent vladimir up there he would have said something sarcastic.

omg I love that dlh

yeah that is a great telegram.

Which conspiracy theory is better, "Paul is dead" or "Moon landing was faked"?

beatles, i'm too wimpy to go to the moon

Beatles, easy.

moon landing conspiracy's way better, paul-is-dead was always kinda lame and forced

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/129730596/2630509441_944a6ee3e2_m.jpg

paul is dead is way more convincing if you watch the shining

Moon landing conspiracy is vastly more entertainingly batshit, not least because those that adhere to it are themselves entertainingly batshit. And the "Paul is dead" thing was conceived of as a prank from the start.

xpost Hey the Beatles wanted to do "Clockwork Orange"

neil = john
buzz = paul
??? = george
??? = ringo

I'd actually go with...

Neil = George
Buzz = Paul
Alan Shepard = John
Pete Conrad = Ringo

BBC soundtracked part of it's first moon landing coverage with an unreleased Pink Floyd instrumental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2HHT7txFQ0

Answer: MOON MOON MOON

TS:

having to deal with all the endless bullshit from ex-band members, Abbey Road engineers saying "you can't do that!", Alan Klein, former Beatlemaniacs, John's infinite ability to be cooler and more clever than you, and Paul's endless "let's get back to basics maaan!" only to have work you did thirty years earlier be shit on by Jeff Lynne and Cirque du Soleil.

vs.

being outside on a summer night with your wife/kids/grandkids/anyone - someone says "hey, look at the moon" and you automatically start grinning.

<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!