Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

December 25, 2005

I take a lot of things for granted in being forty-six years old. Things that younger generations can't relate to.

For instance, there are billions on the earth with no memories of man walking on the moon. I was nine when Apollo 11 took place, and it was a big impact on my life, to say the least. Later, I thrilled to the Lunar Rover bouncing around on the rough moon's surface, and by my early teens had basically taken it for granted that we would be putting men on the moon every now and then.

Well, we all know what happened. The program ended early, and we stopped sending men to extraterrestrial locations.

That somber thought inspires today's FamilyFirst pick: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.

This NASA site contains the complete transcripts of all six missions that reached the surface, as well as the infamous one that didn't.

To say there is a tremendous amount of information here would be a great understatement. I heartily recommend this site for any student doing lunar research.

The complete radio conversations from each landing can be found here. Many official reports can also be downloaded in pdf format.

There is also this chilling account: “At fifty-five hours, fifty-five minutes into the mission, all three astronauts heard and felt a "pretty large bang". It got their immediate attention and, during the next few minutes as they and the ground controllers made a rapid assessment of the health of the spacecraft, it became apparent that, for some reason, two of the three fuel cells in the Service Module had gone dead. No one knew quite what had happened, but there was no doubt that the crew was in serious trouble.”

That, of course, led to the heroics that saved the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts. Did you know that if the explosion had taken place AFTER their landing, they would have had NO chance for survival? I learned that scary factoid here.

So enjoy today's FamilyFirst site. And if you don't remember the moon landings, try to picture how thrilled a nine-year old kid would have been to see it happen.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/