3. Man on the Moon
Video by remhq on YouTube
Man on the Moon is song by the American rock band R.E.M. You can read the lyrics of the song here.
Lyrically, the song is a tribute to the comedian and performer Andy Kaufman with numerous references to his career including his Elvis impersonation, wrestling, and the film My Breakfast with Blassie. The song's title and chorus refer to the Moon landing conspiracy theories as an oblique allusion to rumors that Kaufman's death in 1984 was faked. The song gave its name to Man on the Moon (1999), Miloš Forman's film based on Kaufman's life, and was featured prominently in the film's soundtrack.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Moon_(song)
Objetivos
Connectors show the relationship between the ideas in two clauses. There are 3 kinds of connectors that we use to join clauses in sentences. They are coordinators, subordinators, and transitions.
Coordinators are used to join two independent clauses. The coordinators are and, for, so, but, yet, or and nor. Usually a comma is put before the coordinator.
E.g.:
- The office is closed for the next two days, but you can still phone to leave a message.
- I forgot my computer disc, so I will have to hand in my assignment late.
Subordinators join a dependent clause to an independent clause. Examples of subordinators are before, when, if, because and although. They are used before the dependent clause. They can be used in two positions:
1) The subordinator and dependent clause can come before the independent clause with a comma.
Example: When the bell rang, the students ran to the sky-train station.
2) The subordinator and dependent clause can come after the independent clause with no comma.
Example: The students ran to the sky-train station when the bell rang.
Transitions are used between two independent clauses. Examples of transitions are however, besides, nevertheless, and furthermore. After the first clause, use either a semi-colon or a period, then the transition, then a comma, and then the second clause.
Examples:
- The students laughed; however, the instructor was not trying to be funny.
- The students laughed. However, the instructor was not trying to be funny.
- Jane decided to take classes during the summer. She wanted to enjoy the city in summer. Besides, she didn't have enough money to go on a trip
Look at this list of connectors and pick a few you are comfortable using. You will use them in the next activity.
Reflexión
Read the following text, you will notice how almost no connectors have been used. Rewrite the text and use connectors in order to make it more cohesive.
The First Person on the Moon
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Image in Wikimedia Commons under Public Domain
Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin flew on the Apollo 11 mission.
It was 1961. John F. Kennedy was the president of the United States. He wanted to land humans on the moon. The United States had just started trying to put people in space. Was NASA ready to go to the moon? The president and NASA knew they could do it. They were ready to put people on the moon. Apollo 11's mission was to land two men on the moon. They also had to come back to Earth safely.
Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11.
Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. They landed on the moon in the Lunar Module. It was called the Eagle. Collins stayed in orbit around the moon. He did experiments and took pictures.
Plaque left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew
The sign the astronauts left on the moon says, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." Image Credit: NASA
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours. They did experiments. They picked up bits of moon dirt and rocks.
They put a U.S. flag on the moon. They also left a sign on the moon.
The two astronauts returned to orbit, joining Collins. On July 24, 1969, all three astronauts came back to Earth safely.
President Kennedy's wish came true. It took less than 10 years. Humans had walked on the moon.
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/first-person-on-moon.html
You and your friends are talking about the first moon landing, but you think some of the information they are giving is mistaken. Read the following text and explain to your friends what really happened in 1969.
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he set took his first step, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy (1917-63) announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Apollo 17, the final manned moon mission, took place in 1972.
The Apollo Program
The American effort to send astronauts to the moon had its origins in an appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth."
 Image in Wikimedia Commons under Public Domain |
At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal.In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft combination.
Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in the fire.
President Richard Nixon spoke with Armstrong and Aldrin via a telephone radio transmission shortly after they planted the American flag on the lunar surface. Nixon considered it the "most historic phone call ever made from the White House."
Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968 Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a moon journey and landing.
In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three astronauts to the dark side of the moon and back, and in March 1969 Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. That May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.
Timeline of the 1969 Moon Landing
At 9:32 a.m. EDT on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins (1930-) aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old civilian research pilot, was the commander of the mission.
After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:17 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a now-famous message: "The Eagle has landed."
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made his way down the module's ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions watched in great anticipation.
At 10:56 p.m., as Armstrong stepped off the ladder and planted his foot on the moon's powdery surface, he spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone and meant to be "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Aldrin joined him on the moon's surface 19 minutes later, and together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests and spoke with President Richard Nixon (1913-94) via Houston.
By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon—July 1969 A.D.—We came in peace for all mankind."
At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:50 p.m. on July 24.
5 More Moon Landings and One Aborted Mission
There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13 (whose lunar landing was aborted due to technical difficulties). The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan (1934-) and Harrison Schmitt (1935-) of the Apollo 17 mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972.
The Apollo program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor, involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians and scientists, and costing $24 billion (close to $100 billion in today's dollars). The expense was justified by Kennedy's 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/space-exploration/moon-landing-1969