The Eagle Has Wings
I am a blissfully geeked out little Weasel today; because today is the 40th Anniversary of the first moon landing. I've been fascinated by space ever since I was quite little (I'm not sure how anyone can be a scifi fan without looking up in wonder every so often) and of all the things that have filled me with wonder over the years, the voyager probes, the shuttle launches, cassini and Hubble images, it has always been our visits to other planets that have fascinated me the most. There is something so riveting about the images from the Russian Venera landers, the photos from the Mars rovers and, more than any other, the footage from the moon landings, our first planetfall.
This evening, I've been following a live reconstruction of the mission on we choose the moon.org and listening to the actual transmissions between Apollo 11, the Eagle and Mission Control in Houston. It's really quite fantastic and, once the mission is complete, will be replayable from the site at any time. I very much reccomend you go and have a look if you like that sort of thing.
In a rather delightfully timed look back into the past, we also have some of the first pictures from NASA's new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which are, for the first time, high enough resolution that we can pick out the descent stages of the Eagle, Antares, Orion and Challenger. And the shot of the Apollo 14 landing site is so detailed we can see the Apollo science package on the moon's surface and the path the astraonauts took between the Antares and the instrument package. NASA have said that later passes are going to be in a lower orbit and we should be able to pick out the rovers. I can't wait.
I'd also like to reccomend this post by Gudbuytjane celebrating women in space and this piece from GlobalComment by Monica Roberts on China's Space Program to remind us that Space Exploration isn't just white and male.
BEEP!
Amys last blog post..Before the sun