Website to Recreate Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Monday, July 20 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, and everyone is commemorating the milestone in their own way. For the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, this means the launch (no pun intended) of a new website, WeChooseTheMoon.org, which will recreate the event in real time.

“When President Kennedy challenged the nation to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade, his appeal led to one of the greatest technological achievements in U.S. history,” Tom Putnam, director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, told Business Wire. “WeChooseTheMoon.org will use today’s technology to bring President Kennedy’s vision to life, recreating the historic 1969 Apollo 11 mission and providing a unique opportunity for visitors to experience the adventure as it happened 40 years ago.”

Indeed, it seems as if the site will be as accurate of a representation of the flight as possible. The site will go live at 8:02 a.m. on July 16, and its spacecraft will take off at 9:32 a.m., just like the real one did all those years ago. For the next 102 hours, 45 minutes and 39.9 seconds, WeChooseTheMoon.org will use archived videos, photos and audio clips to virtually guide the site's visitors through the mission.

And, of course, there will be plenty to follow on Twitter. Three feeds will be running during the four-day "journey." One will replicate the communication from Apollo 11 to Houston (AP11_Spacecraft) while another will provide the responses from Houston (AP11_Capcom), and the third will track communication from Eagle to Houston and Columbia (AP11_Eagle). Additionally, AOL's SHOUTcast will be rebroadcasting the live radio transmissions that took place during the event.

Sounds like the next best thing to transporting back to 1969. Our only question: where's the interactive website commemorating Woodstock?