Behind the Black has a series of posts linking to video of the astounding first trip to the moon. Today, July 20, 1969, marks 50 years since humans set foot on the moon. What an incredible accomplishment.
Some fun links to fun video:
- Apollo 11 in real time – Huge amount of video, audio, and photos of the entire mission. If you go to the link, you can start watching one minute before liftoff. Fabulous.
- Apollo 11 First Stage liftoff – Thirty seconds of the liftoff is slowed down to an eight minute playback to see the details. The amount of engineering brilliance going into the Apollo launch is astounding. Just one illustration: the rocket sits on four bars. It is held in place by hold-back bars, which retract a few seconds after ignition and retract into a housing so they don’t burn up. The four housings are covered in ablative material which burns away during the launch so the housing isn’t incinerated.
- Apollo 11 astronaut telecast, July 17, 1969
- Eagle undocks, Apollo 11, July 20, 1969
- July 20, 1969: “The Eagle has landed” – Great video of the descent to the moon. Oh, the time called out by mission control during the descent, for example “60 seconds” and “30 seconds” is the amount of fuel the crew has remaining in the lander. That is how tight the engineering ran.
- July 20, 1969: “One small step…” – First thirty minutes of the first moonwalk. Includes that fabulous quote. Of amusing note, if you know the meaning, Neil Armstrong points out how far the pad of the leg sunk in and points out there is only an eighth of an inch of powder under his feet. Also pointed out the landing engine did not create a hole or blow away a lot of dust. Toward the end of this video, Buzz Alden points out his is only sinking in a quarter of an inch. Ponder.
- July 20, 1969: “We came in peace for all mankind.”
- July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 splashdown – Fantastic video of superb job done by navy divers in recovering astronauts. They washed them down. Superb choreography of the divers in protection gear with those in diving gear. Apollo 11 landed within 10 seconds of the planned splashdown time and within 1 mile of target.
