I’ve never known our moon without footprints on it, but my mom speaks reverently about watching the Eagle touch down. It was the day after she turned nine years old, and her father — my grandfather — had worked on orbital mechanics for the Apollo program. This day fills me with pride for both my family and my species. When we put our minds to it, we are capable of achieving wondrous things.
Forty-five years have passed, but throughout the internet, the awe lives on. I’ve gathered together some links of note, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you know of art, videos, or other celebratory stuff you’d like to share, sound off in the comments.
Collins and Aldrin are in CSM; Aldrin suiting up. Armstrong is in the LM. The crew is about 30 minutes ahead of the flight plan. #Apollo11
— Amy Shira Teitel (@astVintageSpace) July 20, 2014
- One of my favorite Twitter accounts is that of space historian Amy Shira Teitel, who “livetweets” Space Race-era NASA missions. You can witness her time-traveling tweets by following her at @astVintageSpace.
- If you’d prefer to watch the landing as it happened in 1969, NASA TV will be broadcasting the historical footage online tonight at 10:39 PM EST. It’s available in all countries, and is totally free.
- Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is all about social media, and his #Apollo45 campaign commemorates today’s anniversary. The corresponding YouTube channel features moon landing memories from a whole heap of famous folks, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Nye.
- The U.S. National Archives runs a Tumblr called Today’s Document, in which they feature historical media of note. Today, they’ve got a captivating gif set of all the stages of the Apollo 11 mission, taken from the film Moonwalk One. The full clip is included there as well.
- Space.com has a moon landing quiz for those who want to test their lunar cred. I am happy to report that I scored 9/10, and have not shamed my family.
- The Apollo program ended forty-two years ago, and human beings haven’t traveled out that far since. If you think that is dumb and wrong, take a minute to make your voice heard. If you live stateside, write to Congress. If you live on the planet Earth, consider joining the Planetary Society. If you want to get hands-on but don’t want to leave your computer, take part in one of the many citizen science projects at Zooniverse, or help analyze radio telescope data by joining the SETI@home project.
- You, dear reader, will probably not walk on the moon. However, if you’re in need of new kicks, two fancy new pairs of sneakers have been released in honor of Apollo 11: The Air Max Lunar 90s from Nike (pictured above), and The Missions from GE (yes, GE) and JackThreads. Low gravitational forces not included.
- Cake Wrecks has a mouth-watering round-up of space cakes today, including this beauty from an unknown baker.
- In other confectionery news, the Girl Scouts of America put out this short-and-sweet video of a Girl Scout cookie (possibly a Do-Si-Do? maybe a Thin Mint?) leaving the Lunar Module.
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