Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
In 1972, astronaut Gene Cernan became the last person to set foot on the moon. He was part of Apollo 17, the most recent manned mission to the moon. Why was Apollo 17 there? What were they trying to accomplish? This video offers a retrospective of the mission, including archival footage and more recent interviews with Harrison Schmitt, the pilot who flew Apollo 17’s lunar lander.
Take one small step today and experience the historic moon-landing through VR. This video showcases how VR is allowing the public to travel through space through the eyes of those who lived through it.
Despite Apollo 11 starting as a 3,000-ton spacecraft, the only part of it that returned to Earth was the small command module, which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying three astronauts and moon rocks.
As the Apollo 11 astronauts prepared for their journey to the moon, two speeches were drafted for President Richard Nixon: one to be delivered upon the astronauts' success and another to comfort the public in case of failure. This interactive explores the creation of a believable version of the latter.
Created by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, this collection includes detailed biographies of astronauts and scientists who worked on the program and interactive features on the technologies that made it possible.
Twelve Central Illinois residents are asked to share their thoughts on where they were when the first people landed on the Moon. This almost one-hour program is a collaboration of Eastern Illinois University's Booth Library, the EIU Department of History, and WEIU, and it premiered at EIU's Booth Library, January 24, 2019.
On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy set forth this argument for the effort to land humans on the moon’s surface, casting the Apollo mission in terms of historic human ambitions.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong famously declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he stepped onto the moon. Speculation about the origin of his quote includes potential inspiration from JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and a NASA memo. While Armstrong intended to say "a man," audio analysis suggests he may have inadvertently omitted the article, leading to ongoing debate about the quote's accuracy and meaning.
Watch, listen to, and relive the excitement of the Apollo 11 lunar landing through this interactive project as experienced minute-by-minute by the courageous crew of Apollo 11 and Mission Control. Hear the give and take and exchange of information between the astronauts and earthbound specialists who sent them to the moon and brought them back home.
On the night of July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped down the lunar module's ladder onto the moon's surface. The broadcast was watched by an estimated 650 million people—about a fifth of the then global population.
