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.
===============================================================
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.
A phenomenal presentation. Thank you for posting it, Anthony.
I watched the landing on my 14th birthday. My sisters kept talking about how they just couldn’t believe it was really happening. I recall thinking, “What took them so long, Werner Von Braun had it all worked out before I was born”. (I had no inkling how failure modes multiply in complex systems.)
I had immersed myself, for years, in everything I could read about the NASA hardware and missions. People say they felt a tingling down their spine as when the LEM set down and they knew we’d actually done it. For me, that tingle of triumph came when they were still in Earth orbit checking out their systems, and I heard Houston tell them, “You are go for TLI.” That’s TransLunar Injection, the burn to depart Earth orbit for the moon. Up until then I had feared that they’d find something wasn’t quite right, and scrub the mission. I had confidence though that once they were “go”, everything had been checked, so nothing would go wrong.
I had by that time realized that I’d never be an astronaut, because to even be considered you had to first be a hotshot pilot, and to be accepted for training as a fighter pilot you needed 20/20 uncorrected vision. My goal had become rocket scientist.
It’s all different now, of course. A high-school friend of mine, Mae Jemison, later became a shuttle astronaut, although not a pilot. I became a telecommunications engineer.
Many thanks Anthony. Truly inspiring.
@Doug Jones
Thanks so much for that link to the descent video. I’ve finally had time to watch it and the ensemble of the moon landing that Anthony posted – couldn’t view at work because video streams are blocked (oh, and I guess because I’m supposed to be working too).
Mark X, thanks so much for the link to the Neil Armstrong interview. Indeed, worthwhile.
Humility. It really is the key, isn’t it. The brains of the prideful let them achieve, but only the humble achieve greatness.
I worked at “The Cape” during my engineering student days, summers ’67 and ’68, first as a mail courier (TWA) and second as student engineer (General Electric Apollo Systems). A very small spoke in a very large wheel. Never-the-less, great pride and the most exciting jobs of my 65 years and counting.
Why was the sky black when they landed on the moon? Shouldn’t it have been full of sunshine?
No atmosphere to scatter/fluoresce and provide ‘back-lighting’ is why, Anjum.