The 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon is coming up (July 11th, 1969, just under the wire for Kennedy’s goal). Here’s a couple of interesting links.
Lowry Digital in Burbank was brought on board to apply their video processing techniques to the available footage from Apollo 11. You can check out the press conference at National Geographic.
Unfortunately, a group of researchers were unable to locate the original telemetry tapes from the Apollo mission. They hoped to rebuild the video from those sources, which would have been first-generation video copies, but it turns out the tapes were recycled (probably).
And, of course, the obligatory “Would anybody care about the moon landing if it happened today” opinion piece. People would care if it were the first time we walked on the moon, but it’s not. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were hardly the first explorers to be lauded and then quickly set aside. Magellan anyone? Even Columbus Day is more of a hassle to us than a celebration.
If you do want to follow the events of that celebrated mission, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and AOL have put together a really awesome Flash site that lets you follow along.