Google Now Maps the Moon and Mars

Google Earth has expanded beyond our planet and now provides tours of the Moon and Mars.  For instance, Moon in Google Earth allows you to:

-- Take tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronauts;
-- View 3D models of landed spacecraft;
-- Zoom into 360-degree photos to see astronauts' footprint, and
-- Watch rare TV footage of the Apollo mission.

For example, the image below shows various keys points in the Apollo 11 mission. And should you want to track the activities of the Curiosity Rover on Mars you can do that as well.  All you need to do is download the Google Earth program and choose your location.  The navigation and content is not perfect, but it provides a good sense of where you are accompanied by panoramic images. 

I look forward to more planets and moons in the future.  And with NASA's New Horizons heading towards Pluto, we will soon be able to add dwarf planets to the list. 

Interesting Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

For the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Popular Science magazine published an article "Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing."  The stories are taken from Craig Nelson's book Rocket Men.  They bear mentioning again five years later.  You can read all 10 by going to the link (or read the book for even more facts), but here are three of my favorites:

-- The "one small step for man" wasn't actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn't compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle's ladder to the surface.

-- When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle.

-- The toughest moonwalk task? Planting the flag. NASA's studies suggested that the lunar soil was soft, but Armstrong and Aldrin found the surface to be a thin wisp of dust over hard rock. They managed to drive the flagpole a few inches into the ground and film it for broadcast, and then took care not to accidentally knock it over.

I imagine the Moon missions would have ended that day if the astronauts had locked themselves outside of the capsule.  Many, many other little things had to go right for that mission and those that followed.  The Apollo missions represent the true triumph of the human spirit, and ingenuity as well.

45th Moon Landing Anniversary

Forty-five years ago this very day the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong stated "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon's surface for about 22 hours before returning the the command module, where astronaut Michael Collins was waiting for them. The picture above is pretty dramatic, yet the world first saw the mission on television via the poor-quality video shown below.  NASA has restored the video showing about two and a half hours "extravehicular activity."  This was a amazing day in history, and hopefully we will have many more space moments in the future.  We have not returned to the Moon since 1972.  It may be time to revisit the Moon as part of plans to move further out into the solar system.