Apollo
Apollo 11 video: Lost and (someday?) found
Those grainy, black and white television images of Neil Armstrong making his one small step onto the lunar surface...Do they fill you with awe? Or maybe, just a little, do they make you want to lean forward, annoyed, and play with the rabbit ears on your 1960s TV set, give it a hard slap on the top...
July 14, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
LIFE's den mother to the astronauts
It was July 15, 1969, the eve of Apollo 11's launch. There was electricity in the air at a huge banquet at Cape Canaveral in honor of rocketeer Wernher von Braun. The dinner was organized by Fifi Booth, seated at the far end of the table in the photo below. Click here for a larger version. As direc...
July 13, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
Lunar mission in a bottle
Space historian Matthew Hersch writes in:On June 16, 1968, three astronauts left their homes in sunny Houston, and with little fanfare or press attention, quietly voyaged into space. They hadn’t been astronauts for very long: physician Joe Kerwin, selected in 1965, was the first of NASA’s new scien...
July 10, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Astronaut Odds, Long and Short
Random events, improbabilities, the domino effect, good luck, bad luck. It's no secret that these things conspire to engrave names on history. The space program of the 1960s was a great example.Consider the path of Mike Collins, Apollo 11's command module pilot. He was originally assigned to fly on...
July 09, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
What the astronauts really said
Apollo "onboard voice" recordings captured the moon astronauts' conversations -- cussing and all -- when no one else was listening.
July 07, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
If you had been Neil Armstrong....
...what would you have said as you stepped onto the lunar surface in 1969? The folks at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in England want your suggestions (but only if you live in the U.K., sorry). They'll choose the five best recorded messages, turn them into radio signals, and bounce them ...
July 06, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
"Did SO!"
Roger Launius, a senior curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Division, recently gave a talk near the Museum’s newly restored Lunar Module called “Apollo and the So-Called Moon Landing Hoax” (allow pause for an eye-roll). He drew quite a crowd, including many museum employees...
July 03, 2009 |
By Pat Trenner
One-way moon trips and other desperate measures
Space historian Matthew Hersch writes in:
It is difficult to imagine it now, but in 1967, Americans and Soviets were literally dying to get to the moon. That year, three American astronauts lost their lives in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire, and a Soviet cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, died when the ree...
July 02, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
NASA's Giant Cinematic Leap
You want to rediscover the vibe of 1969? Then rediscover the 1970 film Moonwalk One. With shots of camping, idling, beer-drinking middle America on hand in Florida to witness the launch of Apollo 11, interspersed with images of VIPs like Johnny Carson at the Kennedy Space Center, a box-jawed Wernhe...
July 01, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
Apollo’s Army
It took 400,000 people, working under extreme pressure, to reach the moon in 1969. Like any army, they suffered casualties.
June 18, 2009 |
By The Editors
"Amiable Strangers"
Three distinct personalities, one goal: reach the moon.
May 21, 2009 |
By Michael Klesius
Voices from the Moon
What it was like, in the astronauts’ own words. Excerpts from a new book by Andrew Chaikin.
May 20, 2009 |
By Andrew Chaikin with Victoria Kohl
A Smashing Success
How the Ranger probes’ moon crashes helped pave the way for Apollo.
January 21, 2009 |
By Paul Hoversten
To Boldly Go
Sending Apollo 8 to the moon was a risky mix of cold war politics, bravery, and the faith of one man, George Low, in his engineers.
December 19, 2008 |
By Michael Klesius
A&S Interview: Farouk El-Baz
A veteran space scientist discusses the challenges of the 21st Century.
November 2008 |
By Elizabeth Howell
Finding Apollo
Forty years later, we’re about to see what the moonwalkers left behind.
September 2008 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Back to Hadley Rille
A Japanese camera spies a moonscape last explored by astronauts a generation ago.
June 16, 2008 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Confidence Booster
This little known Apollo artifact caused astronauts to rest a little easier.
June 13, 2008 |
By Bob Craddock
