Apollo – NeRDs Moonbase

Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin endorses Trump for president

October 30, 2024 NeRD

One of the United States’ most famous space explorers is backing Donald Trump for president. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person ever to walk on the moon, endorsed Trump in a statement today (Oct. 30), less than a week before the Nov. 5 presidential election. “Over the years, I have seen our government’s approach to space wax and wane, a fluctuating dynamic that has disappointed me from time to time,” the former moonwalker wrote in the statement, which was released by Buzz Aldrin Ventures LLC. “But under the…

NASA Shares Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Remarks

September 18, 2024 NeRD

On Sept. 18, 2024, five Congressional Gold Medals were awarded to women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program. Credit: NASA NASA Administrator Bill Nelson released his remarks as prepared for Wednesday’s Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington. The awards recognized the women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program. “Good afternoon. “The remarkable…

NASA’s Artemis II Crew Uses Iceland Terrain for Lunar Training

September 13, 2024 NeRD

4 Min Read NASA’s Artemis II Crew Uses Iceland Terrain for Lunar Training Credits: NASA/Trevor Graff/Robert Markowitz Black and gray sediment stretches as far as the eye can see. Boulders sit on top of ground devoid of vegetation. Humans appear almost miniature in scale against a swath of shadowy mountains. At first glance, it seems a perfect scene from an excursion on the Moon’s surface … except the people are in hiking gear, not spacesuits. Iceland has served as a lunar stand-in for training NASA astronauts since the days of…

United Nations marks Apollo 11 55th with international moon missions stamps

July 20, 2024 NeRD

Photos of the moon captured by American, Russian, European, Japanese, Indian, Korean and Chinese spacecraft are the subject of new United Nations (UN) postage stamps commemorating the 55th anniversary of the NASA‘s Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. The UN Postal Administration (UNPA) will release six se-tenant postage stamps and three souvenir sheets on Saturday (July 20) to celebrate International Moon Day. Since 2021, the UN has recognized the day that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon “to raise awareness about the commitment to sustainable lunar exploration…

What became of the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon?

July 20, 2024 NeRD

55 years ago today, Apollo 11’s flag raising on the ancient lunar surface took all of 10 minutes during Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s two-and-a-half hour moonwalking adventure in July 1969. But that seminal event in vexillological history was not without a lot of debate, discussion and early worries that were run up the policy flagpole about “who owns the moon?” (Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags.) Matthew Ward is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He notes…

Navigating the Moon with Art

April 25, 2024 NeRD

NASA An artist uses an airbrush to recreate the lunar surface on one of the four models comprising the LOLA, or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach, simulator in this November 12, 1964, photo. Project LOLA was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. In “Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo,” James Hansen wrote: “This simulator was designed to provide a pilot with a detailed visual encounter with the lunar surface; the machine consisted primarily of a cockpit, a…

Overlooked Apollo data from the 1970s reveals huge record of ‘hidden’ moonquakes

March 27, 2024 NeRD

The moon is much more seismically active than we realized, a new study shows. A reanalysis of abandoned data from NASA’s Apollo missions has uncovered more than 22,000 previously unknown moonquakes — nearly tripling the total number of known seismic events on the moon. Moonquakes are the lunar equivalent of earthquakes, caused by movement in the moon’s interior. Unlike earthquakes, these movements are caused by gradual temperature changes and meteorite impacts, rather than shifting tectonic plates (which the moon does not have, according to NASA). As a result, moonquakes are…

Bulova adds limited edition meteorite dial to Apollo 15-inspired Lunar Pilot watch

January 24, 2024 NeRD

How do you enhance the connection that a watch shares with outer space beyond just evoking its history of having been flown to the moon? You replicate the look of the original, but replace its dial with a space rock. Bulova is celebrating its long history with NASA and the U.S. space program by releasing its new Meteorite Lunar Pilot timepiece. The $1,495 limited edition wristwatch, part of Bulova’s growing Archive Series, is the latest reproduction of a prototype chronograph that was secretly flown to the moon. In 1971, Bulova…

Apollo 16 in Pictures: “The Most Dazzling Place”

April 16, 2022 NeRD

We celebrate Apollo 16 with a look back at photos from the mission that took two astronauts to the lunar surface for three days of exploration. The post Apollo 16 in Pictures: “The Most Dazzling Place” appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Fifty Years Ago in Photos: Apollo 15 Astronauts Explore the Moon

July 26, 2021 NeRD

See photos — some familiar and some rarely seen — from the Apollo 15 mission, which launched place 50 years ago today. The post Fifty Years Ago in Photos: Apollo 15 Astronauts Explore the Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.