Re: Missed It By That Much

On Apr 30, 8:51=A0am, cryptoguy <treifam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> There were dozens (probably hundreds) of First Moon Landing stories,
> including many written after WW2. Yet, I can't think of a single one
> which predicted it would be watched on live TV by hundreds of
> millions of people.

That didn't happen in the real world--I watched the TV coverage of
Apollo XI as intently as anybody, and I don't recall there being any
live video of the actual landing--but like most everything else, it
*was* predicted in a science fiction story: Harold M. Sherman, "All
Aboard for the Moon" (Novel--45,000), Amazing Stories, April, 1947.
Apparently never reprinted, so I'll quote a couple of passages from
the story.

p. 35, column 1:

"I'm also indebted to the General Electric Company of Schenectady for
permitting me to install a hitherto untried sending and receiving
radio set which beams radio waves of such high frequency that we are
confident they can penetrate both the Heavyside and Appleton layers
which surround the earth, at respective levels of sixty and two
hundred miles, so that we can keep in constant touch with this planet
during our travels and while on the moon.
"These new instruments, in conjunction with the television apparatus
we are carrying, will permit us to scan some of the moon's surface and
project back to earth the actual scenes as we are witnessing them. You
know, of course, that television waves travel in a straight line and
from the vantage point of the moon they can be beamed directly to
earth. In fact, could a television station be established on the moon,
we could then beam all television shows to the moon and relay them
back to earth on a straight line so that they would be receivable
everywhere."

p. 95, column 2:

"We'll be coming in for a landing in a little over an hour," he said.
"We've got a lot to do to get ready. I've already set the automatic
cameras to take pictures of the lunar landscape as we approach.
Wilbur, you'll have to stand by the television and radio and keep them
both in operation. If possible we want to televise our landing back to
earth."