13 ms·

Apollo 11 in Real Time

783 points by rosser 7y ago

th0ma5 7y ago
This is of course especially designed for this multi track set, but it is a pretty good way to navigate multiple audio sources.
bfeist 7y ago
Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
- cdvonstinkpot 7y ago
  Thanks so much for building this & making it available. I haven't been this excited about a website since the internet was brand new!
- colebowl 7y ago
  I have no questions just admiration. This is so awesome! I can't begin to imagine how long it took you to build this... This is amazing, thank you kind sir.
- phillipseamore 7y ago
  This is an absolute masterpiece! virtual hat off to you sir
  - phillipseamore 7y ago
    One issue! Sharing isn't using the OpenGraph metatags, likely because it's following: <meta property="og:url" content="https://apolloinrealtime.org/" /> And the root doesn't have any of the OG metatags. Quick fix: 1) change og:url to include /11/ or 2) add the OG metadata to the root
    - bfeist 7y ago
      Just did both. Thanks!
- Papirola 7y ago
  thanks!
- tdhz77 7y ago
  Incredible
- donkey_wobble 7y ago
  This is amazing! Is it possible to download all of the audio? This would be great background noise for sleeping or working.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Here you go: https://archive.org/details/nasaaudiocollection https://archive.org/details/nasaaudiocollection Or if you want the trippy version: https://somafm.com/missioncontrol/ https://somafm.com/missioncontrol/
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Do you have, or do you plan, any kind of write up on what all went into building this site? I know that I, for one, would love to know more about what it takes to pull off coordinating all these different media sources and on-screen effects and what-not.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Definitely. I'll be posting at benfeist.com in the coming days. I needed to get it out there first!
- reaperhulk 7y ago
  This site is almost unbelievably great. Have you considered trying to contact the Smithsonian to see if they'd be interested in using it? I've never seen a more impressive interactive exhibit.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    I have. They're not interested.
    - reaperhulk 7y ago
      That's a shame (for them). Your URL structure suggests you may be planning to do this for other Apollo missions, is that in the cards? Edit: I see you've done this for Apollo 17 already on a different URL: https://apollo17.org/ https://apollo17.org/
      - bfeist 7y ago
        Yes. I decided to no longer buy a domain name for each one after a cybersquatter swiped apollo11.org (like I have any money)
    - kouh 7y ago
      Who have you spoken to at SI? Don't let a pen pusher convince you that his view represents the organization
      - bfeist 7y ago
        If you know the right people, please send them the URL
        dmje 7y ago
        Stunning work, huge kudos to you, not just on concept but great execution/UI etc. My 14yo son is the most ridiculously keen space nut (the only teenager I know with a pdf of the Apollo manual on his phone) - he’s going to be very excited to see this. I’m ex Head of Web at the Science Museum (London) and now run a company that works exclusively with museums. I’ll ping a few people: I know the curator of Space at SciM but also lots of museum web people. Just possible someone will know someone at the Smithsonian.
- mholt 7y ago
  This is REALLY amazing. Thank you for making this. The amount of data / information available at my fingertips on this one site is... unprecedented. And I even figured out how to use it!
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Great to hear. I'm so close to it, at this point I have no idea if it's usable or confusing.
    - bridanp 7y ago
      I'm trying to come up with words to describe this that would be worthy of even saying. All I can say is I love it. I was born in 1973, but for those of you who don't remember the pre-internet edge, current books and movies weren't exactly a click away. It would take years for the encyclopedia sets and science books to be updated. So at the ages of 6-12, all of the materials about space were about the Apollo missions. My friends and I would just absorb anything and everything Apollo and moon related we could find as if it were currently happening. This whole real time experience takes me back to that place of trying to figure what time of day they lifted off, how fast they were traveling, how long it took to get into orbit, how long they were there, etc. All of that kind of thing, and here it is beautifully recreated with time, voices, and video. And point in time data to boot. It's just wonderful.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      I found it obvious and intuitive, despite the multiple ways of navigating, and the attention to detail is extraordinary. Now I want that three layer seek on other video sites! I love that each photo - most of which I've never seen or knew existed - appears at the precise moment it was taken and you can click through to a full size. You managed a work of art. I am deeply impressed. The web needs more sites like this. This is what the web should be. I hope you have the bandwidth for when the BBC or similar inevitably find it. :) My very hazy memories of watching the launch and landing in 69 (honestly probably of Apollo 17 in 72 - they've mostly all merged together in the memory now), here in the UK, are recreated wonderfully! Bloody well done!
- imode 7y ago
  This is absolutely remarkable! I'm in awe of the whole thing, as is my father! Thank you so much. This kind of effort means so much to the both of us.
- btown 7y ago
  Truly incredible work. The multitrack visualization is a really great UI, and it does wonders communicating just how much teamwork went into managing these missions. I had no idea all the mission control workstations were recorded, and how active they all were even when the crew was doing an unrelated task. Some small thoughts: when a desk is selected it would be great to deselect it by clicking it again to go back to the master audio. And it would also be great to have the selected button highlight when signal is/isn’t present - perhaps a lighter blue color? That way a user can build an intuition about what a lit button/region that they’re not listening to means. Oh, and it would be fascinating to see a statistical comparison of channel activity in Apollo 11 vs. 13 :) Honestly this is mind blowing. Your site deserves national attention, display on major news networks, millions reliving the behind-the-scenes teamwork that led to IMO the greatest human accomplishment in history. Huge kudos.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Holy moly, thanks for the kudos and great suggestions, too. I'll work on the two-tone selected button tomorrow. I have almost all of the Apollo 13 mission control audio as well. That's the next project (but I want to take a breather for at least a day!)
    - lisper 7y ago
      I know that "me-to" type comments are generally frowned upon here on HN but really do feel the need to pile on in this case: this is wicked cool.
      - zmix 7y ago
        Enthusiasm should not be dampened! So I say: Mee too!
    - sgt101 7y ago
      Thank you for doing this; I hope you are able to take a couple of weeks of serious beach time and recharge yourself properly for the next one!
  - 7y ago
- samlewis 7y ago
  Really awesome, how long did it take you to put together?
  - bfeist 7y ago
    About 2 years. I did a similar site for Apollo 17 before this one (Apollo17.org), which took 6 years. This time I knew what I was doing and could just do it.
- darkmighty 7y ago
  Just wanted to say thanks. This is a little piece of magic. That's what technology is for, I guess.
- lwansbrough 7y ago
  Thank you. This is really incredible work. Is the source code available anywhere? I trust you’ll keep this online for the foreseeable future but this should be preserved and redundantly available in case anything happens.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Yes and no. You can find the Apollo17.org source code that this site has extended, here https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17 https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17. That said, the media elements and photography and some of the other material isn't on github (too big).
    - mkesper 7y ago
      Maybe archive.org can do something great with your site?
- Complexicate 7y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree with what everyone else is saying: "Truly incredible", "almost unbelievably great", "REALLY amazing", "unprecedented", "I love it", "the attention to detail is extraordinary", "an absolute masterpiece", "so awesome", "absolutely remarkable", "Incredible", etc... In a comment you mentioned not having much money. I would highly recommend taking a day or two to set up a Kickstarter or similar for your next release (even if you would do other missions for free anyway). Also consider Patreon or similar. Allow people to give something, even if it's a small amount. While the pieces (audio, video, photos) have been "available" for some time, you probably don't realize how much value you are adding to multiple lives by making them "accessible" in this way.
  - c0vfefe 7y ago
    In the Information Age, value is chiefly derived from organization & presentation of information, rather than simply its availability.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- teh_klev 7y ago
  This is tremendous. Is this any relation to wechoosethemoon.org from a few years back (2009)? The site is still there but needs flash, there's a YouTube video of the site here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFbX3SHbOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFbX3SHbOk
  - bfeist 7y ago
    No relation. That was a paid campaign by the JFK Library done by Martin Agency. The good old days of Flash :)
    - stevenhubertron 7y ago
      I was the primary producer on this at the agency that designed/developed it Domani Studios (Now defunct) if you have any questions.
- ManuelKiessling 7y ago
  You, Sir, have impressed me like no single person doing work on the web has ever before.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    But I'm cheating though using the most interesting and engaging content in human history :)
    - ManuelKiessling 7y ago
      I’m coming from the following point of view: it’s only clear in hindsight, but if someone had asked me “what’s the greatest experience one could build on the web?”, the answer would be “an interactive real time presentation of the Apollo 11 mission”.
- ablation 7y ago
  Sensational work. Really. I don't have much more of a constructive comment to add, but sometimes I feel it's just necessary to say "well done". Brilliant.
- marvin 7y ago
  I was convinced this was an official NASA exhibit made for the 50-year anniversary. Fantastic work and much appreciated. My dad will be psyched; he was 17 at the time of the launches, and this fits in great in the recent tradition of "slow entertainment" that happens in real time over multiple days :)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    It's the sort of thing I'd love to see NASA do for Skylab, Voyager, and other missions, where we used tune in for regular updates. It was all a huge free PR boost for the US - most of my generation were somewhat hooked on space going through school. Then there was all the associated programmes explaining how it all worked, the plan or the why, and the artist's impressions of space stations, manned Mars plans or Lunar bases. There's got to be a huge archive we've seen only snippets of - I never realised they kept every station's comms. If it were official, I suspect I might be disappointed by the time it had got through multiple committees and large government contractors.
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      >It's the sort of thing I'd love to see NASA do for Skylab, Voyager, I'd love to see the same treatment done for the Mars landings.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Thanks very much. I'm a NASA contractor now, so it it's partially a NASA project from that perspective. Can you post some examples of "slow entertainment"? I like that this website might be fitting a genre I didn't know existed.
    - marvin 7y ago
      It does indeed, in a spectacular way -- the other examples of this genre aren't interactive, and don't have nearly as much data. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television, for a nice overview of the various TV-broadcast examples of this :) My experience is just from the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, e.g. with "The Bergen Line minute by minute" [0] which is around 7 hours, or "A coastal voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes" [1] which is 134 hours. These were both sent on national TV in Norway. IMHO not nearly as interesting as the Apollo missions, but something you could have on as background scenery during a day or week at work, at a social gathering or something like that. The silliest example I've seen was a bunch of students who built a live-updated clock for 24 hours, out of a sort of plywood template. They lined up in front of a camera at the Bergen train station (20 meters behind the camera at the start of video 0, incidentally) and worked in shifts for the 24 hours that the broadcast lasted. [2] (Unsure if the link is available internationally). [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Qn_GEPvNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Qn_GEPvNs [2]: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/klokken-minutt-for-minutt https://tv.nrk.no/serie/klokken-minutt-for-minutt
- caf 7y ago
  What exactly is the "sync to today's clock" thing doing - the same day of the month and time of day but in July 1969?
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Yes. It's a way to drop in on today's time of day within the mission. During the actual anniversary in July, it will drop you in 50 years earlier to-the-second.
- austinpray 7y ago
  Hey Ben! This is so neat! I worked with Dr. Hansen on the audio digitization over on http://exploreapollo.org http://exploreapollo.org. Thanks for the link in the footer! I’ve been out of the loop on that project since graduating. Regardless, if you want to collaborate shoot me an email austin@austinpray.com
- rcardo11 7y ago
  Congratulations !!
- rswail 7y ago
  Apollo 11 was my formative experience, I was 5 years old and watched it live on TV in Australia as the images were received. Apollo 11 (and space in general) is why I got into computing (I was never going to be an astronaut), this website is truly outstanding.
- Sparkware 7y ago
  I'm running Firefox 67.0.2 on Linux Mint 19 (fully patched) and the site does not work. It sit waiting for the interface to fully load and the Youtube video pane shows the "three dots" image when Youtube cannot reach the audio. Nothing else loads but I do see the individual audio channel links - none work. I did try your Apollo17.org site and it works beautifully in the same Firefox browser. And if I run Google Chrome, your Apollo 11 site works perfectly. Just not in Firefox. I am running similar extensions in both browsers and I did disable Ublock Origin in Firefox but that had no effect. Apollo17.org in Firefox works fine with Ublock Origin enabled and I also run Ublock Origin in Chrome. I'm willing to help out with debugging if you like.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Sure. Please post any errors in your console.
    - Sparkware 7y ago
      INIT: Loading index.js index.js:193:65 The resource at “https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js” https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js” was blocked because content blocking is enabled. 11 INIT: onYouTubeIframeAPIReady():creating player object index.js:193:65 $(this).data... help_overlay_manager.js:9:234 Object { helpOverlayManager: {…}, forceRight: true, forceBottom: true, overlayTarget: ".app", jsClass: "HelpOverlayManager" } help_overlay_manager.js:9:265 INIT: jQuery(function ($) index.js:193:65 INIT: splash image loaded index.js:193:65 Failed to execute ‘postMessage’ on ‘DOMWindow’: The target origin provided (‘https://www.youtube.com’ https://www.youtube.xn--com-to0a) does not match the recipient window’s origin (‘https://apolloinrealtime.org’ https://apolloinrealtime.xn--org-to0a). 11 processPaperData(): done ajax.js:43:9 Failed to execute ‘postMessage’ on ‘DOMWindow’: The target origin provided (‘https://www.youtube.com’ https://www.youtube.xn--com-to0a) does not match the recipient window’s origin (‘https://apolloinrealtime.org’ https://apolloinrealtime.xn--org-to0a). 11 APPREADY: Ajax loaded: 1 index.js:193:65 whatever index.js:193:65 INIT: onYouTubeIframeAPIReady():creating player object index.js:193:65 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY: populatePhotoGallery(): 2 index.js:193:65 Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/id https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/id. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK.woff2 https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK..... (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOlCnqEu92Fr1MmEU9fBBc4.woff2 https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOlCnqEu92Fr1MmEU9fB.... (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Loading failed for the <script> with source “https://www.google.com/js/bg/vVB4qXRsC37Dg1P6FS82ZMhKPNReNJhzASTCjR42Djs.js” https://www.google.com/js/bg/vVB4qXRsC37Dg1P6FS82ZMhKPNReNJh.... KfRygQcR5uk:1:1 The resource at “https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js” https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js” was blocked because content blocking is enabled. 11 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY: onPlayerReady: 3 index.js:193:65 APPREADY: onPlayerReady: 4 index.js:193:65 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY = 4! App Ready! index.js:193:65 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37
- Symen 7y ago
  For a moment I felt as if I was with them in 1969, amazed by our achievements as humans and looking forward to our next steps. It was a nice, inspirational afternoon. Thanks for this great website !
- pault 7y ago
  I can't imagine how complex the development of the UI must have been. Can you tell us a little bit about the technical implementation? What languages and frameworks you might have used, things that were particularly difficult? Edit: looks like the client is hand-written with jQuery. I guess the next time someone makes a joke about jQuery you can send them this site. :D Edit2: Just to preempt it, let's not have a debate about the state of JS frameworks here, there are enough of those already. :)
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Yeah, it's nothing special. No trendy JS frameworks. The UI was pretty much just whatever I could think of in terms of layout, then a friend of mine helped to design it up a bit so it didn't look like a developer designed it. Wish I could say it was more involved that that, but it wasn't.
- matchagaucho 7y ago
  Is any of the Parkes Observatory (Australia) data available?
  - bfeist 7y ago
    You can hear them on the COMM TECH and NETWORK audio loops.
- nmc 7y ago
  Awesome website! I have two remarks about the speed units displayed on the dashboard: • Why is the Mach number showed while out of the atmosphere? It depends on the local speed of sound which is not really definable there • Why is the speed not shown International System units? As a Kerbal enthusiast, I would love to see metres per second
- worstestes 7y ago
  I would love to contribute to this project if you ever release a crowdfunding campaign!
- photon_lines 7y ago
  I just wanted to commend you and thank you for your great work - this is an absolute masterpiece!!!
Chris_Chambers 7y ago
We never went to the moon.
hirundo 7y ago
I was six years old during Apollo 11 and have just fragmentary memories of it. One is of my grandfather tearing up at the lunar landing and saying "when I grew up I used to carry flint and steel to start a fire" ... which would have been in the 1890s. If he grasped what he was seeing I think he'd be about as future shocked by the internet as exemplified by this link.
- 420codebro 7y ago
  That is amazing - the generational spans. I was born in the 1980s, but I can only imagine the feeling of that day in 1969.
- sharkweek 7y ago
  My dad even talks about that - he’s in his late sixties and has been pretty blue collar careered his whole life. How he simply couldn’t even begin to fathom something like the internet being a thing when he was in his 20s. Makes me wonder what I can’t imagine now that I might see in my lifetime.
  - dmoy 7y ago
    I'm holding out for actually good VR Probably I'm wrong and it'll be something else
    - omilu 7y ago
      i'm holding out for post scarcity, no more 40 hour work week
  - copperx 7y ago
    Probably over a million JS frameworks. I could never fathom such a language in my youth, let alone so many solutions to the same problem.
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      The future is now, my friend.
ridgeguy 7y ago
Thanks for this, it's extraordinary. Brings back such exciting memories from that time. I hope I live to see a crewed launch with Mars as the destination.
deleted 7y ago
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whois 7y ago
This is so cool! I've just been sitting here listening for a while now.
mgraczyk 7y ago
This is an impressive, immersive experience. Any plans to write about the software or share parts of it?
- bfeist 7y ago
  It's a bit of a messy bedroom. Ideally, I'd get some real software devs involved to rewrite it using a modern framework. This is just a pile of JS and some JQuery. One thing of note is that there's no server-side services in this architecture. The browser does all of the work itself. Kind of remarkable when you think about it.
  - copperx 7y ago
    Whoa. The fist thing I thought was "damn, if this is what React can do I want a piece of that action and need to start learning it ASAP."
    - GrumpyNl 7y ago
      Isnt it great , you can accomplish all this, without react, just old J Query. Hats of to creator of the site.
    - oefrha 7y ago
      I recently built a small web app in React for a special interest group. React, Redux, GraphQL, and all that. Partially to teach myself some new hotness (well, new hotness from three to five years ago). After several days of discovering and trying a lot of libraries, I’m pretty happy with the end result, and it probably is more maintainable, but I realized I could have done the same in jQuery for at most half the amount of time (of course to be fair, the percentage of time that went into the code driving the finished product was pretty low). Also, I realized that the new hotness to me is already legacy to some. “Redux is the new jQuery”, they say (when talking about Relay or Apollo v2).
  - gridspy 7y ago
    If you don't mind the sharing part, don't be embarrased about the quality of your source code. Quality will come from getting lots of eyes on it. You made it actually happen, that is very special even if the code is a huge mess.
tychomaz 7y ago
But where is the telemetry data? Oh it got all erased. Every single tape. Whoops.
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  According to NASA there was a magnetic tape shortage. What, you've never taped over a VHS before? xD https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.p...
  - tosca 7y ago
    I’m not 100% if you’re being ironic. They supposedly made the trip seven times and they don’t have the telemetry data from any of the missions. The most important missions ever performed and they delete priceless metrics. They never returned after 50 years. Don Pettit claims that NASA destroyed all the technology to go there and is having a difficult time rebuilding it. None of this makes any sense. Never in the history of technology has a task increased in complexity while technological advancements also increased. It’s all nonsense.
  - datenwolf 7y ago
    > What, you've never taped over a VHS before? Well, actually… I think I have only one or two VHS tapes, being the equivalent of /tmp. yes "have"; I still have all the tapes I recorded neatly organized and mothballed in boxes, and except for that two particular tapes I can not recall of overwriting any other.
- otabdeveloper2 7y ago
  What's a little thing like telemetry data compared with a stunning achievement for humanity like a photo of an American flag on the Moon, amirite?
gabubovey 7y ago
The stamp is pretty awesome. Now all USPS employees are using liteblue portal to get all the benefits. Login to it from https://ncseculogin.website/liteblue-login-liteblue-usps-gov-employee-login/ https://ncseculogin.website/liteblue-login-liteblue-usps-gov...
sigspec 7y ago
My god this is truly an incredible accomplishment. What a great experience for the enthusiast and a great aid to education. Do you have any sort of donation link? I'd love for other missions to be archived in a similar manner.
JakaJancar 7y ago
See also https://www.firstmenonthemoon.com https://www.firstmenonthemoon.com
mykowebhn 7y ago
Bravo to you! Thank you for doing this! This is what the Internet was supposed to be! What we get 99.9999999999 percent of the time is ad-promoted garbage that is as bad IMO as watching mindless tv. Your site is that 0.0000000001 percent that truly transcends and brings back hope that we can take the Internet back and make it something truly great.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Thanks so much. It's been suggested to me countless times that I put promotions on the site or (gasp) enable monetization on the YouTube video portion of the site. Nope. Like you, I dream of the Internet being a better place--the place it was in 1997 but with modern technology.
progman32 7y ago
If you enjoyed this, http://apollo13realtime.org http://apollo13realtime.org might be of interest to you as well.
kzrdude 7y ago
Extraordinary, it's true. Note to others: On mobile it's interesting but only has audio. I had to look at the desktop version to understand why everyone was so amazed about the site.
- bfeist 7y ago
  I couldn't think of another way to make mobile work at all. It's asking a lot of the browser
nagyf 7y ago
Any chance of opensourcing the code?
- raimue 7y ago
  The source code for the Apollo guidance Computer is available on GitHub. https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11 https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11
- bfeist 7y ago
  it is. https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17 https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17
jregane 7y ago
This is so great! Thank you. Just a little confused by the real time counter being set a month in advance.
- bfeist 7y ago
  When it's not during the anniversary 9-day period, it pick the closest time it can and uses today's time of day.
h1fra 7y ago
One of the most impressive website I've seen. Bravo <3
bojanvidanovic 7y ago
This is one of the coolest things I saw on the internet! Really amazing!
pepijndevos 7y ago
For some reason my dad can't get in. The cursor is just a (/) when you mouse over the join now button. Is the site overloaded? Is something wrong on his end?
- bfeist 7y ago
  Tell him to turn off ad block or antivirus. If he's unable to load in the mission data files through ajax the site will just hang on the splash screen.
deleted 7y ago
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gouggoug 7y ago
Amazing website. I've been listening to the audio and a few seconds after the 171:04:22 mark, on the CAPCOM channel we can hear the voice of a woman that seems completely out of place. She seems to be saying "Howdy". Anybody knows where this voice comes from?
- bfeist 7y ago
  Sounds like someone's secretary. All phone calls from console were recorded. This is one of those.
  - bfeist 7y ago
    BTW, you can generate links to any channel at any time by clicking the little link button when the mission control audio console is open. Here's the moment in question: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=171:04:09&ch=14 https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=171:04:09&ch=14
  - gouggoug 7y ago
    Ha I see, I did not realize this was coming from CAPCOM-L and was confused
rcardo11 7y ago
My 16gb 3.2 GHz MacBook Pro is on fire reproducing this. 50 years ago they went to the moon and back with far less resources.
- bfeist 7y ago
  It definitely pushes the browser to its limit. Suggest cleaning your head sink though, it's not that bad.
zipperhead 7y ago
I'm just leaving this on in the background on the home theater PC, and switching back to it from the Roku to check in on things. Truly amazing.
matchagaucho 7y ago
The individual console and telemetry feeds redefines how to appreciate the technical effort involved with this mission. This definitely belongs in the Smithsonian on display with it's own interactive kiosk.
philjohn 7y ago
If you'd like a deep dive into Apollo 11 I can recommend the podcast "13 Minutes to the Moon". It's 5 episodes in so far and gripping my attention.
kelsolaar 7y ago
Fantastic work, this is very enjoyable and was instantly bookmarked!
baconhigh 7y ago
See also; this twitter account is tweeting Apollo missions as they happened in real time, 50 years ago: https://twitter.com/apollo_50th https://twitter.com/apollo_50th

783 points by rosser 7y ago

This is of course especially designed for this multi track set, but it is a pretty good way to navigate multiple audio sources.

bfeist 7y ago

Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.

cdvonstinkpot 7y ago
Thanks so much for building this & making it available. I haven't been this excited about a website since the internet was brand new!
colebowl 7y ago
I have no questions just admiration. This is so awesome! I can't begin to imagine how long it took you to build this... This is amazing, thank you kind sir.
phillipseamore 7y ago
This is an absolute masterpiece! virtual hat off to you sir
- phillipseamore 7y ago
  One issue! Sharing isn't using the OpenGraph metatags, likely because it's following: <meta property="og:url" content="https://apolloinrealtime.org/" /> And the root doesn't have any of the OG metatags. Quick fix: 1) change og:url to include /11/ or 2) add the OG metadata to the root
  - bfeist 7y ago
    Just did both. Thanks!
Papirola 7y ago
thanks!
tdhz77 7y ago
Incredible
donkey_wobble 7y ago
This is amazing! Is it possible to download all of the audio? This would be great background noise for sleeping or working.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Here you go: https://archive.org/details/nasaaudiocollection https://archive.org/details/nasaaudiocollection Or if you want the trippy version: https://somafm.com/missioncontrol/ https://somafm.com/missioncontrol/
mindcrime 7y ago
Do you have, or do you plan, any kind of write up on what all went into building this site? I know that I, for one, would love to know more about what it takes to pull off coordinating all these different media sources and on-screen effects and what-not.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Definitely. I'll be posting at benfeist.com in the coming days. I needed to get it out there first!
reaperhulk 7y ago
This site is almost unbelievably great. Have you considered trying to contact the Smithsonian to see if they'd be interested in using it? I've never seen a more impressive interactive exhibit.
- bfeist 7y ago
  I have. They're not interested.
  - reaperhulk 7y ago
    That's a shame (for them). Your URL structure suggests you may be planning to do this for other Apollo missions, is that in the cards? Edit: I see you've done this for Apollo 17 already on a different URL: https://apollo17.org/ https://apollo17.org/
    - bfeist 7y ago
      Yes. I decided to no longer buy a domain name for each one after a cybersquatter swiped apollo11.org (like I have any money)
  - kouh 7y ago
    Who have you spoken to at SI? Don't let a pen pusher convince you that his view represents the organization
    - bfeist 7y ago
      If you know the right people, please send them the URL
      - dmje 7y ago
        Stunning work, huge kudos to you, not just on concept but great execution/UI etc. My 14yo son is the most ridiculously keen space nut (the only teenager I know with a pdf of the Apollo manual on his phone) - he’s going to be very excited to see this. I’m ex Head of Web at the Science Museum (London) and now run a company that works exclusively with museums. I’ll ping a few people: I know the curator of Space at SciM but also lots of museum web people. Just possible someone will know someone at the Smithsonian.
mholt 7y ago
This is REALLY amazing. Thank you for making this. The amount of data / information available at my fingertips on this one site is... unprecedented. And I even figured out how to use it!
- bfeist 7y ago
  Great to hear. I'm so close to it, at this point I have no idea if it's usable or confusing.
  - bridanp 7y ago
    I'm trying to come up with words to describe this that would be worthy of even saying. All I can say is I love it. I was born in 1973, but for those of you who don't remember the pre-internet edge, current books and movies weren't exactly a click away. It would take years for the encyclopedia sets and science books to be updated. So at the ages of 6-12, all of the materials about space were about the Apollo missions. My friends and I would just absorb anything and everything Apollo and moon related we could find as if it were currently happening. This whole real time experience takes me back to that place of trying to figure what time of day they lifted off, how fast they were traveling, how long it took to get into orbit, how long they were there, etc. All of that kind of thing, and here it is beautifully recreated with time, voices, and video. And point in time data to boot. It's just wonderful.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    I found it obvious and intuitive, despite the multiple ways of navigating, and the attention to detail is extraordinary. Now I want that three layer seek on other video sites! I love that each photo - most of which I've never seen or knew existed - appears at the precise moment it was taken and you can click through to a full size. You managed a work of art. I am deeply impressed. The web needs more sites like this. This is what the web should be. I hope you have the bandwidth for when the BBC or similar inevitably find it. :) My very hazy memories of watching the launch and landing in 69 (honestly probably of Apollo 17 in 72 - they've mostly all merged together in the memory now), here in the UK, are recreated wonderfully! Bloody well done!
imode 7y ago
This is absolutely remarkable! I'm in awe of the whole thing, as is my father! Thank you so much. This kind of effort means so much to the both of us.
btown 7y ago
Truly incredible work. The multitrack visualization is a really great UI, and it does wonders communicating just how much teamwork went into managing these missions. I had no idea all the mission control workstations were recorded, and how active they all were even when the crew was doing an unrelated task. Some small thoughts: when a desk is selected it would be great to deselect it by clicking it again to go back to the master audio. And it would also be great to have the selected button highlight when signal is/isn’t present - perhaps a lighter blue color? That way a user can build an intuition about what a lit button/region that they’re not listening to means. Oh, and it would be fascinating to see a statistical comparison of channel activity in Apollo 11 vs. 13 :) Honestly this is mind blowing. Your site deserves national attention, display on major news networks, millions reliving the behind-the-scenes teamwork that led to IMO the greatest human accomplishment in history. Huge kudos.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Holy moly, thanks for the kudos and great suggestions, too. I'll work on the two-tone selected button tomorrow. I have almost all of the Apollo 13 mission control audio as well. That's the next project (but I want to take a breather for at least a day!)
  - lisper 7y ago
    I know that "me-to" type comments are generally frowned upon here on HN but really do feel the need to pile on in this case: this is wicked cool.
    - zmix 7y ago
      Enthusiasm should not be dampened! So I say: Mee too!
  - sgt101 7y ago
    Thank you for doing this; I hope you are able to take a couple of weeks of serious beach time and recharge yourself properly for the next one!
- 7y ago
samlewis 7y ago
Really awesome, how long did it take you to put together?
- bfeist 7y ago
  About 2 years. I did a similar site for Apollo 17 before this one (Apollo17.org), which took 6 years. This time I knew what I was doing and could just do it.
darkmighty 7y ago
Just wanted to say thanks. This is a little piece of magic. That's what technology is for, I guess.
lwansbrough 7y ago
Thank you. This is really incredible work. Is the source code available anywhere? I trust you’ll keep this online for the foreseeable future but this should be preserved and redundantly available in case anything happens.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Yes and no. You can find the Apollo17.org source code that this site has extended, here https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17 https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17. That said, the media elements and photography and some of the other material isn't on github (too big).
  - mkesper 7y ago
    Maybe archive.org can do something great with your site?
Complexicate 7y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with what everyone else is saying: "Truly incredible", "almost unbelievably great", "REALLY amazing", "unprecedented", "I love it", "the attention to detail is extraordinary", "an absolute masterpiece", "so awesome", "absolutely remarkable", "Incredible", etc... In a comment you mentioned not having much money. I would highly recommend taking a day or two to set up a Kickstarter or similar for your next release (even if you would do other missions for free anyway). Also consider Patreon or similar. Allow people to give something, even if it's a small amount. While the pieces (audio, video, photos) have been "available" for some time, you probably don't realize how much value you are adding to multiple lives by making them "accessible" in this way.
- c0vfefe 7y ago
  In the Information Age, value is chiefly derived from organization & presentation of information, rather than simply its availability.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
teh_klev 7y ago
This is tremendous. Is this any relation to wechoosethemoon.org from a few years back (2009)? The site is still there but needs flash, there's a YouTube video of the site here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFbX3SHbOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFbX3SHbOk
- bfeist 7y ago
  No relation. That was a paid campaign by the JFK Library done by Martin Agency. The good old days of Flash :)
  - stevenhubertron 7y ago
    I was the primary producer on this at the agency that designed/developed it Domani Studios (Now defunct) if you have any questions.
ManuelKiessling 7y ago
You, Sir, have impressed me like no single person doing work on the web has ever before.
- bfeist 7y ago
  But I'm cheating though using the most interesting and engaging content in human history :)
  - ManuelKiessling 7y ago
    I’m coming from the following point of view: it’s only clear in hindsight, but if someone had asked me “what’s the greatest experience one could build on the web?”, the answer would be “an interactive real time presentation of the Apollo 11 mission”.
ablation 7y ago
Sensational work. Really. I don't have much more of a constructive comment to add, but sometimes I feel it's just necessary to say "well done". Brilliant.
marvin 7y ago
I was convinced this was an official NASA exhibit made for the 50-year anniversary. Fantastic work and much appreciated. My dad will be psyched; he was 17 at the time of the launches, and this fits in great in the recent tradition of "slow entertainment" that happens in real time over multiple days :)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It's the sort of thing I'd love to see NASA do for Skylab, Voyager, and other missions, where we used tune in for regular updates. It was all a huge free PR boost for the US - most of my generation were somewhat hooked on space going through school. Then there was all the associated programmes explaining how it all worked, the plan or the why, and the artist's impressions of space stations, manned Mars plans or Lunar bases. There's got to be a huge archive we've seen only snippets of - I never realised they kept every station's comms. If it were official, I suspect I might be disappointed by the time it had got through multiple committees and large government contractors.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    >It's the sort of thing I'd love to see NASA do for Skylab, Voyager, I'd love to see the same treatment done for the Mars landings.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Thanks very much. I'm a NASA contractor now, so it it's partially a NASA project from that perspective. Can you post some examples of "slow entertainment"? I like that this website might be fitting a genre I didn't know existed.
  - marvin 7y ago
    It does indeed, in a spectacular way -- the other examples of this genre aren't interactive, and don't have nearly as much data. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television, for a nice overview of the various TV-broadcast examples of this :) My experience is just from the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, e.g. with "The Bergen Line minute by minute" [0] which is around 7 hours, or "A coastal voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes" [1] which is 134 hours. These were both sent on national TV in Norway. IMHO not nearly as interesting as the Apollo missions, but something you could have on as background scenery during a day or week at work, at a social gathering or something like that. The silliest example I've seen was a bunch of students who built a live-updated clock for 24 hours, out of a sort of plywood template. They lined up in front of a camera at the Bergen train station (20 meters behind the camera at the start of video 0, incidentally) and worked in shifts for the 24 hours that the broadcast lasted. [2] (Unsure if the link is available internationally). [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Qn_GEPvNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Qn_GEPvNs [2]: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/klokken-minutt-for-minutt https://tv.nrk.no/serie/klokken-minutt-for-minutt
caf 7y ago
What exactly is the "sync to today's clock" thing doing - the same day of the month and time of day but in July 1969?
- bfeist 7y ago
  Yes. It's a way to drop in on today's time of day within the mission. During the actual anniversary in July, it will drop you in 50 years earlier to-the-second.
austinpray 7y ago
Hey Ben! This is so neat! I worked with Dr. Hansen on the audio digitization over on http://exploreapollo.org http://exploreapollo.org. Thanks for the link in the footer! I’ve been out of the loop on that project since graduating. Regardless, if you want to collaborate shoot me an email austin@austinpray.com
rcardo11 7y ago
Congratulations !!
rswail 7y ago
Apollo 11 was my formative experience, I was 5 years old and watched it live on TV in Australia as the images were received. Apollo 11 (and space in general) is why I got into computing (I was never going to be an astronaut), this website is truly outstanding.
Sparkware 7y ago
I'm running Firefox 67.0.2 on Linux Mint 19 (fully patched) and the site does not work. It sit waiting for the interface to fully load and the Youtube video pane shows the "three dots" image when Youtube cannot reach the audio. Nothing else loads but I do see the individual audio channel links - none work. I did try your Apollo17.org site and it works beautifully in the same Firefox browser. And if I run Google Chrome, your Apollo 11 site works perfectly. Just not in Firefox. I am running similar extensions in both browsers and I did disable Ublock Origin in Firefox but that had no effect. Apollo17.org in Firefox works fine with Ublock Origin enabled and I also run Ublock Origin in Chrome. I'm willing to help out with debugging if you like.
- bfeist 7y ago
  Sure. Please post any errors in your console.
  - Sparkware 7y ago
    INIT: Loading index.js index.js:193:65 The resource at “https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js” https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js” was blocked because content blocking is enabled. 11 INIT: onYouTubeIframeAPIReady():creating player object index.js:193:65 $(this).data... help_overlay_manager.js:9:234 Object { helpOverlayManager: {…}, forceRight: true, forceBottom: true, overlayTarget: ".app", jsClass: "HelpOverlayManager" } help_overlay_manager.js:9:265 INIT: jQuery(function ($) index.js:193:65 INIT: splash image loaded index.js:193:65 Failed to execute ‘postMessage’ on ‘DOMWindow’: The target origin provided (‘https://www.youtube.com’ https://www.youtube.xn--com-to0a) does not match the recipient window’s origin (‘https://apolloinrealtime.org’ https://apolloinrealtime.xn--org-to0a). 11 processPaperData(): done ajax.js:43:9 Failed to execute ‘postMessage’ on ‘DOMWindow’: The target origin provided (‘https://www.youtube.com’ https://www.youtube.xn--com-to0a) does not match the recipient window’s origin (‘https://apolloinrealtime.org’ https://apolloinrealtime.xn--org-to0a). 11 APPREADY: Ajax loaded: 1 index.js:193:65 whatever index.js:193:65 INIT: onYouTubeIframeAPIReady():creating player object index.js:193:65 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY: populatePhotoGallery(): 2 index.js:193:65 Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/id https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/id. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK.woff2 https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK..... (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOlCnqEu92Fr1MmEU9fBBc4.woff2 https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOlCnqEu92Fr1MmEU9fB.... (Reason: CORS request did not succeed). Loading failed for the <script> with source “https://www.google.com/js/bg/vVB4qXRsC37Dg1P6FS82ZMhKPNReNJhzASTCjR42Djs.js” https://www.google.com/js/bg/vVB4qXRsC37Dg1P6FS82ZMhKPNReNJh.... KfRygQcR5uk:1:1 The resource at “https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js” https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js” was blocked because content blocking is enabled. 11 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY: onPlayerReady: 3 index.js:193:65 APPREADY: onPlayerReady: 4 index.js:193:65 setApplicationReadyPoller(): Checking if App Ready index.js:193:65 APPREADY = 4! App Ready! index.js:193:65 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37 window resize index.js:204:108 TypeError: paper.view is null navigator.js:7:37
Symen 7y ago
For a moment I felt as if I was with them in 1969, amazed by our achievements as humans and looking forward to our next steps. It was a nice, inspirational afternoon. Thanks for this great website !
pault 7y ago
I can't imagine how complex the development of the UI must have been. Can you tell us a little bit about the technical implementation? What languages and frameworks you might have used, things that were particularly difficult? Edit: looks like the client is hand-written with jQuery. I guess the next time someone makes a joke about jQuery you can send them this site. :D Edit2: Just to preempt it, let's not have a debate about the state of JS frameworks here, there are enough of those already. :)
- bfeist 7y ago
  Yeah, it's nothing special. No trendy JS frameworks. The UI was pretty much just whatever I could think of in terms of layout, then a friend of mine helped to design it up a bit so it didn't look like a developer designed it. Wish I could say it was more involved that that, but it wasn't.
matchagaucho 7y ago
Is any of the Parkes Observatory (Australia) data available?
- bfeist 7y ago
  You can hear them on the COMM TECH and NETWORK audio loops.
nmc 7y ago
Awesome website! I have two remarks about the speed units displayed on the dashboard: • Why is the Mach number showed while out of the atmosphere? It depends on the local speed of sound which is not really definable there • Why is the speed not shown International System units? As a Kerbal enthusiast, I would love to see metres per second
worstestes 7y ago
I would love to contribute to this project if you ever release a crowdfunding campaign!
photon_lines 7y ago
I just wanted to commend you and thank you for your great work - this is an absolute masterpiece!!!

Chris_Chambers 7y ago

We never went to the moon.

hirundo 7y ago

I was six years old during Apollo 11 and have just fragmentary memories of it. One is of my grandfather tearing up at the lunar landing and saying "when I grew up I used to carry flint and steel to start a fire" ... which would have been in the 1890s. If he grasped what he was seeing I think he'd be about as future shocked by the internet as exemplified by this link.

420codebro 7y ago
That is amazing - the generational spans. I was born in the 1980s, but I can only imagine the feeling of that day in 1969.
sharkweek 7y ago
My dad even talks about that - he’s in his late sixties and has been pretty blue collar careered his whole life. How he simply couldn’t even begin to fathom something like the internet being a thing when he was in his 20s. Makes me wonder what I can’t imagine now that I might see in my lifetime.
- dmoy 7y ago
  I'm holding out for actually good VR Probably I'm wrong and it'll be something else
  - omilu 7y ago
    i'm holding out for post scarcity, no more 40 hour work week
- copperx 7y ago
  Probably over a million JS frameworks. I could never fathom such a language in my youth, let alone so many solutions to the same problem.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    The future is now, my friend.

ridgeguy 7y ago

Thanks for this, it's extraordinary. Brings back such exciting memories from that time. I hope I live to see a crewed launch with Mars as the destination.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

whois 7y ago

This is so cool! I've just been sitting here listening for a while now.

mgraczyk 7y ago

This is an impressive, immersive experience. Any plans to write about the software or share parts of it?

bfeist 7y ago
It's a bit of a messy bedroom. Ideally, I'd get some real software devs involved to rewrite it using a modern framework. This is just a pile of JS and some JQuery. One thing of note is that there's no server-side services in this architecture. The browser does all of the work itself. Kind of remarkable when you think about it.
- copperx 7y ago
  Whoa. The fist thing I thought was "damn, if this is what React can do I want a piece of that action and need to start learning it ASAP."
  - GrumpyNl 7y ago
    Isnt it great , you can accomplish all this, without react, just old J Query. Hats of to creator of the site.
  - oefrha 7y ago
    I recently built a small web app in React for a special interest group. React, Redux, GraphQL, and all that. Partially to teach myself some new hotness (well, new hotness from three to five years ago). After several days of discovering and trying a lot of libraries, I’m pretty happy with the end result, and it probably is more maintainable, but I realized I could have done the same in jQuery for at most half the amount of time (of course to be fair, the percentage of time that went into the code driving the finished product was pretty low). Also, I realized that the new hotness to me is already legacy to some. “Redux is the new jQuery”, they say (when talking about Relay or Apollo v2).
- gridspy 7y ago
  If you don't mind the sharing part, don't be embarrased about the quality of your source code. Quality will come from getting lots of eyes on it. You made it actually happen, that is very special even if the code is a huge mess.

tychomaz 7y ago

But where is the telemetry data? Oh it got all erased. Every single tape. Whoops.

jazzyjackson 7y ago
According to NASA there was a magnetic tape shortage. What, you've never taped over a VHS before? xD https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.p...
- tosca 7y ago
  I’m not 100% if you’re being ironic. They supposedly made the trip seven times and they don’t have the telemetry data from any of the missions. The most important missions ever performed and they delete priceless metrics. They never returned after 50 years. Don Pettit claims that NASA destroyed all the technology to go there and is having a difficult time rebuilding it. None of this makes any sense. Never in the history of technology has a task increased in complexity while technological advancements also increased. It’s all nonsense.
- datenwolf 7y ago
  > What, you've never taped over a VHS before? Well, actually… I think I have only one or two VHS tapes, being the equivalent of /tmp. yes "have"; I still have all the tapes I recorded neatly organized and mothballed in boxes, and except for that two particular tapes I can not recall of overwriting any other.
otabdeveloper2 7y ago
What's a little thing like telemetry data compared with a stunning achievement for humanity like a photo of an American flag on the Moon, amirite?

gabubovey 7y ago

The stamp is pretty awesome. Now all USPS employees are using liteblue portal to get all the benefits. Login to it from https://ncseculogin.website/liteblue-login-liteblue-usps-gov-employee-login/ https://ncseculogin.website/liteblue-login-liteblue-usps-gov...

sigspec 7y ago

My god this is truly an incredible accomplishment. What a great experience for the enthusiast and a great aid to education. Do you have any sort of donation link? I'd love for other missions to be archived in a similar manner.

JakaJancar 7y ago

See also https://www.firstmenonthemoon.com https://www.firstmenonthemoon.com

mykowebhn 7y ago

Bravo to you! Thank you for doing this! This is what the Internet was supposed to be! What we get 99.9999999999 percent of the time is ad-promoted garbage that is as bad IMO as watching mindless tv. Your site is that 0.0000000001 percent that truly transcends and brings back hope that we can take the Internet back and make it something truly great.

bfeist 7y ago
Thanks so much. It's been suggested to me countless times that I put promotions on the site or (gasp) enable monetization on the YouTube video portion of the site. Nope. Like you, I dream of the Internet being a better place--the place it was in 1997 but with modern technology.

progman32 7y ago

If you enjoyed this, http://apollo13realtime.org http://apollo13realtime.org might be of interest to you as well.

kzrdude 7y ago

Extraordinary, it's true. Note to others: On mobile it's interesting but only has audio. I had to look at the desktop version to understand why everyone was so amazed about the site.

bfeist 7y ago
I couldn't think of another way to make mobile work at all. It's asking a lot of the browser

nagyf 7y ago

Any chance of opensourcing the code?

raimue 7y ago
The source code for the Apollo guidance Computer is available on GitHub. https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11 https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11
bfeist 7y ago
it is. https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17 https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17

jregane 7y ago

This is so great! Thank you. Just a little confused by the real time counter being set a month in advance.

bfeist 7y ago
When it's not during the anniversary 9-day period, it pick the closest time it can and uses today's time of day.

h1fra 7y ago

One of the most impressive website I've seen. Bravo <3

bojanvidanovic 7y ago

This is one of the coolest things I saw on the internet! Really amazing!

pepijndevos 7y ago

For some reason my dad can't get in. The cursor is just a (/) when you mouse over the join now button. Is the site overloaded? Is something wrong on his end?

bfeist 7y ago
Tell him to turn off ad block or antivirus. If he's unable to load in the mission data files through ajax the site will just hang on the splash screen.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gouggoug 7y ago

Amazing website. I've been listening to the audio and a few seconds after the 171:04:22 mark, on the CAPCOM channel we can hear the voice of a woman that seems completely out of place. She seems to be saying "Howdy". Anybody knows where this voice comes from?

bfeist 7y ago
Sounds like someone's secretary. All phone calls from console were recorded. This is one of those.
- bfeist 7y ago
  BTW, you can generate links to any channel at any time by clicking the little link button when the mission control audio console is open. Here's the moment in question: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=171:04:09&ch=14 https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=171:04:09&ch=14
- gouggoug 7y ago
  Ha I see, I did not realize this was coming from CAPCOM-L and was confused

rcardo11 7y ago

My 16gb 3.2 GHz MacBook Pro is on fire reproducing this. 50 years ago they went to the moon and back with far less resources.

bfeist 7y ago
It definitely pushes the browser to its limit. Suggest cleaning your head sink though, it's not that bad.

zipperhead 7y ago

I'm just leaving this on in the background on the home theater PC, and switching back to it from the Roku to check in on things. Truly amazing.

matchagaucho 7y ago

The individual console and telemetry feeds redefines how to appreciate the technical effort involved with this mission. This definitely belongs in the Smithsonian on display with it's own interactive kiosk.

philjohn 7y ago

If you'd like a deep dive into Apollo 11 I can recommend the podcast "13 Minutes to the Moon". It's 5 episodes in so far and gripping my attention.

kelsolaar 7y ago

Fantastic work, this is very enjoyable and was instantly bookmarked!

baconhigh 7y ago

See also; this twitter account is tweeting Apollo missions as they happened in real time, 50 years ago: https://twitter.com/apollo_50th https://twitter.com/apollo_50th