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Apollo 11

Apollo 11: What We Saw, with Bill Whittle [Part IV]

Nearly every person on Earth with access to a TV watched it in real time. But when the astronauts returned from the lunar surface we got an entirely new perspective on the alien world. This is the final episode of Bill Whittle’s landmark series.

Nearly every single person on Earth with access to a TV watched it in real time. But when the astronauts returned from the lunar surface we got an entirely new perspective on the alien world. This is the final episode of Bill Whittle’s landmark series.

38 replies on “Apollo 11: What We Saw, with Bill Whittle [Part IV]”

I just finished watching this with my parents. My mom worked at Marquardt in the late 50s while my dad finished his engineering degree before being hired by Boeing to finish the Saturn V engine. My late brother was project engineer some 40 years later, developing the SR-68 Shuttle engine and working with Boeing and United Launch Alliance.
I could watch Apollo documentaries all day, but these 4 hold a special place.
Thanks for joining our family for “What We Saw”–even as we remember what we built.
Thanks for sharing your own anecdotes to bolster our own memories of this remarkable time in human history.
In memorium to JDP, Here’s to Mars. Or the Moon again. Or literally any other Space Endeavor.

Bill – have you considered sending a dvd of this series to the surviving Apollo astros? 13 of them live on to this day. While the anniversary is past, the story is perennial, and I’m sure they all have PR people you can reach to send copies.

Just finished the series. It is hands down the best, most completely engaging presentation on the Program I have ever experienced. Being an “Apollo Kid” your presentation brought back the experience at a very personal and gut level. My ‘cheer experience’ was with 34,000 Boy Scouts that year in Idaho at the National Jamboree. Your description took me back and I felt that pride-behind-the-eyes again, thanks. You dredged up a few other memories as well, not all welcome. One in particular involving , punching into a 200 foot overcast departing ICT in our newly serviced Citation only to look down and see both ADIs turning opposite one another. That still makes me queasy 20 years later. (thanks for that Bill) That being said, I am incredibly jealous of the planning, and communication skill that went into this, as much or more I’ll wager than many test flights. The heart shows. I dare ya to do another one.

I was raised on the space program; my dad, a PhD EE, worked at NASA ARC in Mountain View CA. I remember piling, with brother and sister, into Mom and Dad’s bed to watch each launch and landing. I cried so much during Parts I and II of your production – from joy, memories, pride, sadness – that I didn’t think I could cry any more. At the end of Part IV, though, I was sobbing again, for the sacrifice, heroism, and courage of so many, so freely given. Thank you.

Politicians only care about money and power. The only reason we had a space program, to begin with, was because the Soviets threatened the political power of our politicians. The only reason we had a space program after the Soviet threat was vanquished is that there was still some value in it for the politicians using it to garner votes in their home states and get donation kickbacks from contractors.

Space exploration is in the hands of the free market now. I say let NASA go the way of the Dodo bird.

Phenomenally good work, Bill, and I loved the way you tied a bow on it in this episode, with a challenge to the current generation! I greatly enjoyed & benefitted from the meticulous research you put into every detail of this wonderful and wonder-filled series, interspersed with your personal stories relating how living through the Age of Apollo affected you. Fantastic, informative, and inspiring work! Bravo!

Only one burning question was left unanswered. What became of the steely-eyed missile man deep in that mountain at Backup Mission Control after the Apollo program concluded? To Be Continued … ? 🤔

Having dutifully stayed indoors during the current heat advisory, I binge watched this magnificent production. I was 16 years old during the Apollo 11 mission. At that time, the space program, and NASA, were our future.

Thank you, Bill, for bringing the Apollo story into such vivid light. Great research and writing, and new details and anecdotes about these great men. I’m sharing with everyone I know.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. What an awesome way to celebrate the anniversary of one of our greatest American achievements. No one else could have done it better. Congratulations Bill!

Very glad the viewership of this series is starting to show life, though it is still orders of magnitude shy of the numbers it truly deserves! Well done Bill …. WELL DONE INDEED!!!

I just finished Part 4, absolutely fantastic. Great work Bill Whittle you are by far the best man to share this important history with the world and shine the light on what I hope to be our future as well. I still have tears in my eyes.

Bill Whittle, YOU are the man! This series was utterly fantastic and I hope it gets a wider release than just your website. Thank you!

I’d given up on space, y’know? It seemed like no one cared anymore by the time I left college, all my childhood dreams spoiled by the adult realities of budget and political considerations. And then I started watching the Stratosphere Lounge, and Bill kept mentioning some of these private companies who were poking at the idea of going to space without the NASA logo–and then the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch happened and I cried almost as much as I did watching this last segment (and dammit, I’m crying again now), because it seemed like my childhood dreams might actually still have a chance at becoming a reality.

If I can possibly see to type through my tears of pride and joy of this series, I want to thank our dear Mr. Whittle for his passion and dedication to putting all this wonderful information together for us to share, share, share with as many people as we can. That is exactly what I intend to do, starting as soon as I can see clearly again. I was alive and watching every single moment Bill has so eloquently described, so I can tell you that what we saw and what we felt was just as amazing as he’s told us. I was born in 1050, so I have had the privilege of living through our first space age, as well as through the greatest era of music ever. I feel so very blessed at being able to experience both first hand. Thank you, again, Bill, for the time, effort, expense…and love, you put into making this series. I sincerely hope it will become required viewing in every middle and high school in the nation.

Amazing series. I’ve been a fan for years but this series finally compelled me to become a member.

Thanks Bill for all of the great content and all of the effort you and everyone else has put into it over the years.

Bill – it is dusty in here tonight. Thanks!!!!!
You, sir, are a STEELY-EYED MISSILE MAN!

I cried at least 12 times throughout this. Sometimes tears of joy, sometimes sadness. Mostly frustration.
Thanks, Bill This was AWESOME

Great job Bill and a heartfelt congratulations to you and the entire team who put these programs together. I would really like to see this one day on Amazon or Netflix so a wider potential audience could see and learn from this. I had not yet turned 18 but had graduated High School in 1969 when Apollo 11 took flight on that historic voyage. Brought back a lot of long forgotten memories and for that Thank You.

Stellar work Bill! I just finished part 4, and no previous Apollo documentary makers have come close to the heartfelt, personal labor of love – and skill – of this glorious masterpiece.

The Apollo program touched something in me when, at the mighty age of 8, while watching the live broadcast from Apollo 8 on that Christmas Eve, I was utterly baffled as to why nobody else at the Christmas party my family had been invited to was watching it with me. They were all laughing and doing whatever people did at parties in another room. What could possibly be more interesting than these fantastic, larger than life American astronauts, speak to us from weightless space while flying around the moon? I still remember the feeling of unfathomable disconnect to this day.

I was born in England, but I truly think I became American on Christmas Eve 1968. Those astronauts weren’t English, like me. They were doing incredible things, just like I’d seen on the American science fiction TV shows I would watch. My 8 year old brain understood that those real men came from the same country that told those fantastic tales of imagination. There was no difference in my mind. I wanted to be in America where things like that could – and did – happen. I never lost that feeling.

I just watched “What We Saw pt. 4”.
I, too, am 60 years old. I, too, was 10 years old for Apollo 11.

I have just watched the best program I have ever seen. I keep wiping my eyes as I’m typing this.

So, now, I have just one question…Bill, you have just now done the best work of your life…..

Now What?

Thank you.

No, no, no! He must continue with his most important mission and that is continuing to bring us his incredible videos to share with others and help awaken even more people to the great, and horrible, events that are shaping our nation currently. Alright, he can take a moment to rest…okay,that was it, so now to forge ahead. 🙂

I was only joking Cathy. In actual fact I think this brings Bill much closer to a media format that suits him, and that can really make a cultural impact. Bill is no more an inherently political person than any of the rest of us. He just has great oratorical skills which allow him to inhabit that world. His best work though is the cultural and historical stuff. Left unsaid, but imbued within that are the values we want to preserve and cultivate in the culture. Mike Rowe’s tv work never once mentioned politics, but he has had a massively positive influence on the culture.

Martin nailed it. Mike Rowe. I love Mike Rowe. His foundation changes lives for the better. With “What We Saw”, some luck, lots of sharing, Bill may have just left Mike’s orbit and headed out to soon enter the Paul Harvey orbit.

Even before he established his foundation, I’m sure Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs series had a positive effect on countless working men and women. It’s easy to forget in this hyper politicized culture the left has created, that politics is downstream of culture – per the great Breitbart. I would rather watch 4 or 6 or however many series like “Apollo 11” Bill could produce a year than a year’s worth of BWnow shows. And I’m sure it would have infinitely greater cultural impact.

I knew you were joking, hun. I just had to carry the joke even further. Can’t help myself sometimes.

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