Keep an eye out for more Apollo 11 tributes
We’ve already mentioned a few of the Apollo 11 tribute pages we found on Sunday. We expect to find a lot more starting tomorrow: Thursday is the 40th anniversary of the day Apollo 11 blasted off for the moon.
Again, here’s the timeline:
- July 16, 9:32 a.m.: Liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
- July 20, 4:17 p.m.: Landing on the moon
- July 20, 10:56 p.m.: First footstep on the moon
- July 21, 1:11 a.m.: Moonwalk ends
- July 24, 12:50 p.m.: Splashdown in the Pacific
Possibly the most intriguing online tribune we’ve found is this one, from Boston’s John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. They’re commemorating the fruition of Kennedy’s pledge to land on the moon by staging an online reenactment of the entire mission:
What you’re seeing in this little screen cap is the main visual in the center — complete with changeable camera angles — a running clock on the left, the latest communications on the right and a key to the whole trip across the bottom. All three panels are collapsible.
Presumably, at 9:32 a.m. Thursday morning, we’ll hear audio from 40 years ago and see the launch recreated via 3D graphics.
Great stuff. We’re eager to relive it all. Find the Kennedy library’s We Choose the Moon site here.
The Associated Press, too, created a multimedia presentation showing how Apollo 11 went to the moon and back. It’s probably posted all sorts of places; we found it on the MSNBC web site:
The piece includes a very nice, lengthy video, with additional thumbnail graphics down the side…
…but the centerpiece is definitely the mission walk-through:
We found ourselves a little disappointed, though. Only the most basic information is covered — really, not enough to justify the time put into rendering and animating the spaceships.
In addition, without even trying hard, we spotted errors in the AP diagram. For example, look at the very end of this copy block:
1:09 p.m.? No, the moonwalk began July 20 at 10:56 p.m. and ended two hours and 13 minutes later at 1:09 a.m. on the 21st.
This one’s even worse. See those little things hanging down from the Lunar Module’s ascent stage as it lifts off from the moon, using the descent stage as a launch pad?
Those things are deflectors, designed to direct the rocket exhaust from those little thrusters away from the descent stage.
One little problem: The AP has drawn them attached to the ascent stage. In fact, they were attached to the descent stage. Here’s a photo of the abandoned descent stage of Apollo 16, three years after Apollo 11:
Not good, AP. You guys have a lot more resources than your client papers and they count on you to get everything right. You’re doing a fine job with the cute little animated rocket plumes and sound effects; now try presenting your content accurately, Hmm?
Again, we found the AP piece here. Your mileage may vary.
The Boston Globe delighted us today by featuring Apollo 11 in its The Big Picture photo blog, combing the NASA archives for vintage photos that are relatively rarely used.
For example, you may have heard the story about how Neil Armstrong crashed a NASA training aircraft called the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, or LLRV, just two months before Apollo 11 took off. The Globe dug up a photo of that incident:
That’s just one of the 40 photos posted there. Nice job, Globe. Find the Globe’s Big Picture Blog, here.
The New York Times‘ own photo blog, Lens, posted Monday a collection of photos by David Burnett — who, in 1969, was a 22-year-old photo stringer for Time magazine. Instead of focusing on the launch or preparations for the launch, Burnett shot people, documenting the enormous crowds that showed up around Cape Kennedy — as it was called then — for the historic launch:
In addition, the Times has invited readers to send in their own photos and memories. Presumably, they’ll be printing some of those soon.
Find the NYT Lens blog piece here.
Meanwhile, the Times‘ own multimedia folks put together a recreation of the mission — rather than rely on 3D animation, the Times featured vintage NASA handout film and narration by John Wilford, who covered Apollo 11 for the Times, 40 years ago:
Wilford’s not the world’s most expressive speaker. But the presentation moves along in a breezy fashion, yet still feels packed with information. The designers supplied sidebars aplenty: Links to additional videos to accompany each segment, plus PDF links to vintage NYT articles and pages from 40 years ago.
For example, here’s the Times‘ front page from July 17, the day after the launch:
Can you get over how wide that sucker is?
Find the Times‘ Apollo 11 anniversary coverage here.
Several papers, we expect, will be posting vintage front pages. The Huntsville Times, for example, says it’ll be running vintage fronts, but we’re not sure those will be viewable online (and we can’t find any mention of it tonight).
Cape Canaveral’s hometown paper — 40 years ago it was called Today but it’s now known as Florida Today — built an elaborate online anniversary tribute:
This site is huge. We’ve only just begun to explore all the nooks and crannies there.
Florida Today has made available not just vintage page ones, but entire editions of period newspapers for online viewing:
The downside is that you have to view the pages through the site’s little viewer window. There’s plenty of zoom and pan functions, but we sure would like to have the option of downloading a PDF.
Here’s a graphic from1994 that commemorate the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11:
One of the coolest things about the site is that so many NASA veterans have retired in the area. Therefore, the section where Florida Today has invited readers to post their own memories is quite extensive. And quite interesting:
Note that last comment — it touches on the conspiracy folks, the ones who believe the entire Apollo program was a hoax.
After the comments we posted on Sunday — I called them “idiots” and “nutcases,” and I stand behind both words — Florida Today’s Denise Covert was kind enough to send me this infographic about that very topic.
Click for a larger (and, hopefully, readable) view:
That was by staffer T.J. Standish, Denise tells us.
Florida Today also plans an elaborate special section for this Sunday. She says she’ll send us the cover.
Find all the Florida Today multimedia stuff here.
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Meanwhile, we’re looking for more. Did you put together a tribute page for Thursday? How about for next Monday, the actual anniversary of the landing itself?
If it’s not on the front or posted at the Newseum, it’s unlikely we’ll see it. So why not send us a PDF or high-resolution JPG? Or a link to where we can find it posted on your web site?
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We posted a bunch of helpful web resources Sunday, so we won’t bore you with them again. Find our earlier Apollo anniversary post here.
apollo 11 graphic
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July 15th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Really like the Myth or Fact presentation by Florida Today. Nice job T.J.