Friday, July 17, 2009

Follow the Apollo 11, 40 years later

The year was 1969, some three blokes on an incredible mission to conquer one of the biggest mankind dreams, walking on the moon. It meant a milestone in scientific and technological communities and for space exploration.

It all started with President’s John F. Kennedy address on the Nation’s Space Effort:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Then Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were crammed into a tiny space craft that would take them to the moon. The rest is history. What a better way to celebrate Apollo’s 11 lunar landing 40th anniversary than with a re-enactment of their trip using modern technologies. A website called We Choose The Moon (www.wechoosethemoon.org) by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum allows to follow the Apollo 11 mission in real time just as it happened on 1969. On the page there is streaming audio of the mission, including updates from the spacecraft and mission control. There are also Twitter accounts for mission control (@AP11_CAPCOM), Apollo 11 (@AP11_SPACECRAFT), and lunar landing module (@AP11_EAGLE).

On July 20, 1969 mankind achieved something that was a dream since man became man, landing on the moon. Be sure to visit www.wechoosethemoon.org to commemorate and remember an historic event.