On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Annual John H. Glenn Lecture took place at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Tickets were in high demand for the event, which featured the Apollo 11 astronauts - among others - discussing the past, present, and future of manned spaceflight. [more inside]
posted by futureisunwritten on Jan 2, 2010 - 17 comments

Space is really big. A perspective on the Earth and Moon from the view of a pixel.
posted by loquacious on Aug 11, 2009 - 50 comments

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned its first images of the Apollo moon landing sites. The spacecraft’s onboard camera photographed Lunar Module descent stages at five of the six Apollo sites—11, 14, 15, 16, and 17. The Apollo 12 site will be photographed in coming weeks. [more inside]
posted by prinado on Jul 17, 2009 - 38 comments

We Chose the Moon: The JFK Library and Museum has just launched this interactive web experience using archival audio, video, photos, and recorded transmissions to re-create, in real time, the July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
posted by Miko on Jul 13, 2009 - 43 comments

Moon Landing Tapes Found! [more inside]
posted by sexyrobot on Jul 2, 2009 - 93 comments

Rethinking Earthrise. On the 40th anniversary of the NASA's Apollo 8 mission [caution: weird JFK animation], which answered Stewart Brand's epochal, LSD-inspired question "Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?" with an unforgettable image of a seemingly fragile and isolated blue planet, Nature editor Oliver Morton -- author of a new book on photosynthesis called Eating the Sun -- disputes the notion that the Earth is fragile and isolated. "The fragility is an illusion," he writes. "The planet Earth is a remarkably robust thing, and this strength flows from its ancient and intimate connection to the cosmos beyond. To see the photo this way does not undermine its environmental relevance -- but it does recast it."
posted by digaman on Dec 24, 2008 - 39 comments

The environment does terrible things to the human body and it smells. Many people go for that walk anyway. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Feb 10, 2008 - 32 comments

In honor of this morning's impressive lunar eclipse, another moon-photo post: For decades you had to be a scholar or specialist to get access to the original Apollo flight films, most of which have been stored in freezers at Houston's Johnson Space Center. Now Arizona State University and NASA are scanning the negatives with high-resolution equipment and creating an online digital archive of downloadable images for the general public. Here are the first few, from Apollo 15. (Similar topics previously: 1, 2, 3, 4.)
posted by GrammarMoses on Aug 28, 2007 - 9 comments

“When a few of the space pioneers sat down to sketch out how a practical space camera should look one of them had suddenly exclaimed: ‘That's starting to look like my Hasselblad’." NASA originally didn’t think much of space photography until Walter Schirra brought his Hasselblad 500C along on his Sigma 7 Mercury flight. Impressed by the results, NASA responded by commissioning the Hasselblad Data Camera, a stripped-down HasselBlad 500EL that accompanied all Apollo missions to the moon. In the hands of moonwalking astronauts, the Data Camera’s custom medium format film and Zeiss Biogon 5.6/60mm lens captured images of remarkable clarity, color, and sometimes composition. What's your favorite? [warning: frameset - try the "Full Hasselblad Magazines" link].
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Mar 30, 2007 - 32 comments

Apollo Panoramic Images [note: Quicktime VR]
posted by crunchland on Jul 16, 2006 - 14 comments

Moonbase Visions. You've read about and discussed NASA's plan to use new post-shuttle launch vehicles to return to the moon. But what, exactly, is the US planning to do on the moon? What would a semi-permanent moonbase look like? And why return at all? NASA's announced answers to these questions remain vague. But last year eleven sets of responses to these questions were offered to NASA in the development proposals submitted to NASA by eleven Aerospace concerns, each of which suggested different designs, missions, and philosophies for NASA's return to the moon. Some common themes:

Military: "Provide nationally assured access to orbital locations for the placement of observation systems" and "assured access to space for development of force projection systems and movements of logistics." (pdf link, p. 5) Commercial: "Commercialize space products and services" (pdf link, p.6) Public Relations: Keeping the public inspired with "regularly placed program milestones." (pdf link, p.7)

It's interesting to compare the details of these proposals. But taken together, they raise a broader question: does NASA's fear that the public will lose interest in this commercializing, militarizing, moon venture reflect an awareness that that the vision has finally been lost?
posted by washburn on Sep 22, 2005 - 62 comments

Now that Discovery is home safe and well, let's take a moment to remember some anxious moments 36 years ago, when President Nixon had a contingency memo prepared to read in case that Neil Armstrong et al. were somehow unable to return to Earth. The forgotten memo, written by William Saffire, is from the National Archives.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 9, 2005 - 18 comments

Thanks to Yahoo's video search, I've spent the morning thrilling to movies from Nasa's earlier space programs. Ed White does the first american spacewalk, the crew of apollo 8 sends out a christmas message (wonder how that would play these days), Neil Armstrong goes for a walk, Buzz Aldrin gives a science lesson, John Young goes muddin', Apollo 17 lifts off from the moon. Galileo gets his due via Apollo 15, as does Kubrick, via Skylab. all this makes the Challenger explosion just incredibly sad.

Though I still don't know why searching for apollo 8 turned up gay porn and I don't wanna know.

What is really interesting though, is watching this Apollo 17 astronaut work on the moon. His body is moving in all sorts of subtle ways that highlight how odd it must be to work in lower gravity.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jan 9, 2005 - 35 comments

The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Journals, records and some images from the Apollo lunar missions.
posted by plep on Mar 10, 2003 - 13 comments

NASA Challenges Moon Hoax Conspiracy After decades of almost ignoring claims that the Apollo missions were hoaxed, NASA commissioned aerospace writer James Olberg to write an official rebuttle. Perhaps a bit more reasonable than the NASA Stooge, the book is aimed at the general public.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Nov 7, 2002 - 33 comments

Conspiracy or not? Convinced to sit and watch FOX's show on whether we landed on the moon, I found myself wondering why there was no evidence against the hoax presented. Is this is clearly another feed on the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's administration? Or was it just another "When cars attack?" (If so, I didn't find this as funny)
posted by samsara on Mar 26, 2001 - 24 comments