I still get chills and misty eyes watching this. For those of us that watched the Apollo 11 moon landing live on TV, we had to be content with the voices of Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra along with simulated models and radio traffic. Here, thanks to this award winning new website, we can experience the landing as if we are in the cockpit of the LEM and listening in the live communications loop (both Air-to-Ground and Flight Director’s audio loop) from the beginning of the descent, to the touchdown, and the STAY/NO STAY decision making afterwards.
This website even keeps track of the pitch angle of the LEM from telemetry data, and tracks what console at Houston Mission Control is speaking. You can even watch the heart rate of Neil Armstrong.
Trust me, this will be the best 18 minutes you ever spend online. It makes me proud to watch.
From the About page at the website:
This project is an online interactive featuring the Eagle lunar landing. The presentation includes original Apollo 11 spaceflight video footage, communication audio, mission control room conversations, text transcripts, and telemetry data, all synchronized into an integrated audio-visual experience.
Until today, it has been impossible to comprehensively experience mankind’s shining exploratory accomplishment in a singular experience. We have compiled hours of content available from public domain sources and various NASA websites. Thamtech staff and volunteers generously devoted their time to transcribe hours of speech to text. By using simultaneous space and land based audio and video, transcripts, images, spacecraft telemetry, and biomedical data—this synchronized presentation reveals the Moon Shot as experienced by the astronauts and flight controllers.
Our goal is to capture a moment in history so that generations may now relive the events with this interactive educational resource. The world remembers the moon landing as a major historical event but often fails to recognize the scale of the mission. This interactive resource aims to educate visitors while engaging them with the excitement of manned-spaceflight to build a passion for scientific exploration.
Visitors begin the experience by hearing the words of Buzz Aldrin while simultaneously viewing the moon through the lunar module window. Moments later, the audience hears capsule communicator Charlie Duke inform flight director Gene Kranz that the astronauts are on schedule to start the descent engine. Throughout the presentation, visitors are able to customize their experience by jumping to key moments in the timeline. The timeline guides visitors to the crucial moments in the mission, including: program alarms (computer alerts), famous Go No-Go polls in the control room, low level fuel milestones, and landing.
“The Eagle has Landed.” Neil Armstrong’s words signal a technical milestone and successful execution of John F. Kennedy’s vision to land a man on the moon safely. Prior to these famous words, visitors see the synchronized audio communications, transcripts, video of the lunar module’s casting a shadow on the lunar surface, and biomedical telemetry of Armstrong’s heart rate surpassing 150 beats per minute!
The footprints from Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969 paved the way for five additional successful trips to the lunar surface over the following years. Thamtech takes pride in providing visitors with a glimpse into this and mankind’s enduring spirit for exploration.
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Click the image below to watch, listen, and experience the moon landing like you have never seen it before. – Anthony
P.S. For you Lewandowsky types, if you happen to run into Buzz Aldrin at a climate conference where he talks about his climate skepticism, it is probably best that you don’t call him a “denier” (moon landing or otherwise) to his face.
Here’s video of Buzz landing the punch heard round the world.
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When we were young we were looking forward to having holidays on the Moon when we were older. What happened to the space program? Somewhere along the line we stopped reaching for the stars. We have placed to much emphasis on “it’s the taking part that counts”. No it isn’t! What counts is that you fought with all of your might to be the best. Not just the best that you could be but better than everyone else. That you tried to smash your competitors and take all of the glory. Not that you “took part”. F*** that, taking part is for wimps. Let’s get people back onto the moon and further. Not because we can’t build a robot to go there for us, but because it is our dream.
For some reason I get the impression that someone here follows John Ringo on Facebook. I think that punch video is getting a lot of play today.
Much of my manned space flight live TV watching was spent finding the network where the talking heads said the least and didn’t talk over the capcom and astronaut chatter. I even listened to a couple space shuttle launches on shortwave radio when NASA relayed the feed there.
One of the great things about the Apollo 11 landing was that Walter Cronkite was actually speechless for a few seconds.
I’ll watch the site later tonight. And cheer again for Buzz. It’s got to be galling to spend so much of your life training to get to the moon and then be accused of being part of a con.
The sequence brought a tear to my eyes … and I’m not even an American ! That was such a great day, what an achievement for those dedicated patriots and smart people at NASA … can’t say much for NASA today except that they aren’t a shadow of the past.
The punch brought joy to my heart … LOL !
Great! Just great!
Thanks, Anthony.
What planet does Bart Sibrel come from…? The lunar landing sequence was enthralling. Breathing again.
Thank you!
We need reminded of our accomplishments as a “unified” country more often!
That was a good punch. He rocked that moron’s world.
Great site, really enjoyed that. I remember watching on TV that night as a young squirt. I wish they had a graphic showing the trajectory; its really amazing.
Back in the early 90’s I worked at JSC on a small robotic Lunar Lander called Artemis. My job was to design the guidance system for each of the burns. The last burn, the powered descent phase as seen at this web site, was the most difficult. First thing I did was ask around to see if NASA had any old timers left who understood this maneuver. Sad thing was, no one did. So I spent hours at the JSC technical library scrolling through microfiche records of technical papers from the 60’s. I found several written by an engineer named George W. Cherry around 1963. He really should get the credit for that maneuver. From this theoretical work, called “e-guidance”, I was able to create a new guidance algorithm and improve on it.
First time I got it working in the simulator I plotted out the trajectory. It wasn’t what I had imagined. The vehicle comes screaming in almost horizontal, parallel with the Moon’s surface for almost the entire flight, until the very end when the pitch to vertical maneuver begins. Most people might imagine this long benign vertical descent as seen in Kubrick’s 2001. Not at all. I can imagine why Armstrong’s heart rate was well over 100.
It was a hoot to think that back then I was probably the only person at NASA who knew how to land on the moon. I left NASA several years later after that program and several other advanced projects were canceled. It was the Apollo program that inspired me to go into aerospace engineering. We just don’t have the will to embark on such adventures any more.
Like most of us who regularly come here I come primarily for the latest on the climate wars, but every now and then Anthony throws us a curve. What a curve. A wonderful achievement landing on the moon, what a wonderful achievement building WUWT.
Loved the landing sequence , as Niff said , breathing again.
As for Bart Sibrel , what a pathetic excuse for a human being , watch Sibrel`s body language toward the end , He`s trying to use His size , youth and crazy to intimidate what He sees as just an old man . Trying to intimidate someone who`s ridden into space on something could have easily become pretty much the world`s biggest non-nuclear bomb ? Well that was never going to work .
I remember clearly watching it – they had the studio mock up ready as the live transmission was a bit sketchy, and the stand in was starting to back down the ladder then the live feed came back on and we got to watch the real thing. Pretty sure about that..
Good for Buzz having known an 82 year old retired Ranger-82nd Airborne- I would not want to have eve considered making Buzz mad. He got exactly what he deserved…
Thanks, Anthony for the web link!!!
It sounds wonderful, but I’m happy with my childhood memories of being allowed to stay up for the event. And the punch is a classic.
When heroes lived among us. It was a great time to be alive.
I remember the day well – I spent the morning riding horses with a friend in the foothills west of Calgary, Alberta and listened to the landing on the radio; then driving back into Calgary to watch the first steps on the moon. Such a dichotomy.
Great day.
The Landing Sequence is Wonderful !, Absolutely Wonderful !
Thank you Anthony. And thank those who worked so hard to get all of this important information together and compiled into a format that conveys the reality of the events as they occurred every second of the way, 43 years ago. This is a major achievement.
I can’t believe that an otherwise intelligent website would champion the placement of men on the moon as a worthwhile accomplishment. This was nothing more than a political stunt to show that we had rocket technology and could threaten the Soviet Union. I ask, what was learned that could not have been learned with robots at much reduced expense? As we are doing regarding Mars. There is no good reason to send men to Mars as there was no good reason to send men to the moon.
Where’s the thumbs up / down buttons when they’re needed?
“When we were young we were looking forward to having holidays on the Moon when we were older. What happened to the space program?”
I have it from the head of NASA himself that Muslim Outreach is a much more important goal then your silly “space program”!!!
@ur momisugly Jim Butts says:
May 1, 2013 at 8:33 pm
Well Jim. At least you admit Buzz took the trip.
@ur momisugly Jim Butts: Your name says it all.
I am SO PROUD to be an American! That night (or day, depending on where you were), the entire WORLD (except Kruschev and his gang) were Americans. For a few hours, as we gazed up at that quiet, bright, silver disc in the sky and prayed, or sat glued to the television set, or listened to the radio, or heard the news from the barefoot boy running back to the village in Africa, we were all Americans.
And that one of those brave men, our heroic astronauts, who insisted on celebrating communion while on the moon, should be harassed by a man not fit to wipe their helmets AND USING THE BIBLE (“…even the Devil…”), is despicable. How old was Buzz Aldrin in 2011? WAY TO GO, BUZ! Always a hero.
@ur momisugly Codetech and all the other software engineers here, DO YOU REALIZE WHO SAVED THE DAY for that mission? The computer programmer! As I recall, from a 1969 the computer was given code that made it do far more calculations than it needed to and it was bogging down and kept turning the alarm on that would auto-shut down the engines ON THE SPOT with only minutes to re-write the code, the programmer DID IT and the alarms stopped and the flight continued — WHEW! The astronauts got most of the glory, but, one (see, I can’t even recall his name!) stalwart computer programmer was a hero that day. As were hundreds of others whose names most of us will never know. But, they were there.
And so, too, are you, all you fine scholars who doggedly pursue the battle for truth with wit, grace, and integrity. YOU GO, WUGT Science Heroes!
God, bless America!
“… from a 1969 ‘Readers Digest’ article (September, I think)… ” [oops!]
Why don’t we have a Buzz Aldrin day? / Moonwalk Parade. Where all realists can come together and properly celebrate the acheivements of this man…