Apollo 11 Audio Time Capsule

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jeff

jeff

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To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission,which landed the first man on the moon, the original mission audio is being replayed in "real time" (40 years later) by NASA.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo11_radio/

There are long periods of silence at some points, so don't get discouraged if you don't hear something right away. Audio is the technical air-to-ground transmission. The transcript (a 15MB PDF) is here.

Right now they are 90 minutes past trans-lunar injection, on the way to the moon.
 
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Oops, I was wrong. They are still orbiting the earth. Trans-Lunar injection has not occurred.

I was also wrong about the source. It is Capcom and technical air-to-ground interleaved.
 
Though they could probably put someone on the moon now, I'm one of the people that don't think it could have happened 40 years ago. :confused:

However, I'd certainly believe it if I could look through a telescope and see the stuff that was left behind with my own eyes. :biggrin:
 
I can remember us all gathering around the radio and listening to the landing. It was very nerve racking and exciting. I would go in a heartbeat.
 
Did anyone see the article about how NASA taped over the original video footage? That just cracked me up. A company in Hollywood is remastering the CBS footage to make it better, just to add to the conspiracy theorists flames.
 
Check this out. The new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has a high resolution camera on board and took pictures of 5 of the 6 landing sites!
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/?archives/76-LROC’s-First-Look-at-the-Apollo-Landing-Sites.html

On Apollo 14, you can clearly see the tracks of the astronaut cart Al Shepherd and Ed Mitchell took to hold the moon rocks. You can see the shadow of the decent stage of the lunar modules in each of them. Resolution is about 1 meter. As the orbit stabilizes, it will go down to around 30 miles above the surface and it will be able to get about 3X better resolution.

Way cool!
 
skiprat said:
Though they could probably put someone on the moon now, I'm one of the people that don't think it could have happened 40 years ago. :confused:

However, I'd certainly believe it if I could look through a telescope and see the stuff that was left behind with my own eyes. :biggrin:
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, even the Hubble space telescope can't photograph objects that small. NASA is sending a mission to map the moon for resources, and photograph possible landing sites. It's scheduled to take photos of the landing sites.

One of the missions left behind a mirror reflector gadget. Nasa uses it to measure the distance to the moon. Shine a powerful laser at that spot on the moon, and measure the reflection. Timing the return reflection gives the distance. They can determine this to an unbelievable degree of precision. I believe an inch or so. The moon is moving away from the earth at about and inch a year and they use this to measure the actual rate.
 
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