Hans Remembers- News Headlines from 50 years ago today- Friday August 1, 1969.

• Today began the three day Atlantic City Pop Festival. Pop Festivals sure were big in the late 60’s. At this one the stars included- B.B. King, Santana, Janis Joplin, Three Dog Night, Dr. John, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Procol Harum, The Byrds, Little Richard, Jefferson Airplane among others. Joni Mitchell appeared briefly but ran off the stage in tears after three songs because the crowd wasn’t paying attention to her performance. 110,000 attended the festival.

• NASA administrator Thomas Paine announced that a manned mission to both Mars and Venus would be feasible in the 1980’s and said that November 12, 1981 would be  a good date for the launch of two rockets and 12 astronauts by the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application under development. As we know 50 years later we are no closer to Mars or Venus than we were on August 1, 1969.

• A retroreflector deployed by Astronaut Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 manned mission to the Moon was tested successfully for the first time The first laser measurement concluded that at the time sent the Moon was 226,970.9 miles, give or take 150 feet from San Jose, California were the astronomers were located at the Lick Observatory.