Men of Earth

40 years ago, the Apollo 11 moon mission was in progress.  Launching on  July 16th, 1969, and making the moon landing on the 20th with the whole world watching.   

I was 14 at the time and I remember sitting if front of my parents black and white television watching the launch and moon walk.  I was already a big science fiction and space geek, with a small collection of space books, and I've remained that in the years since.  It surprises me that there are still a small proportion of the population who believes it was all a hoax.  I also wish that the United States had continued the moon landings, instead of stopping them in the early 70's.  I get new hope every time the president or NASA announces a new initiative, but those get dashed when the political realities set in and nothing happens.  At this stage, I believe I have to wait until a private company makes a trip or another space race starts up again.

There  is a lot of nostalgic looks back at the first moon landing though.  This Boston Globe set of photos is good.  I particularly like the Michael Collins explanation on #35.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/remembering_apollo_11.html

  

The NASA history office has a series of photos up.

http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/kippsphotos/apollo.html

New Scientist magazine has an article on how things might have been if we kept going.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327162.600-apollo-special-welcome-to-lunarville.html

A lot of the higher quality moonwalk videos were erased.  Nasa has found some copies and is restoring it.  A few examples are available on line.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11.html

A web site dedicated to the Apollo 11 mission.

http://wechoosethemoon.org/

The Saturn V launch photo was downloaded from the NASA history site.