With the recent passing of Neil Armstrong, there have been many tributes to the first manned landing on the moon. Tamtech has done something I’ve never quite seen before – a real-time playback of the audio, video, and spacecraft telemetry of the actual Apollo XI landing.
The movie points out who’s talking, both from the Eagle lunar module and from mission control in Houston. It shows you the footage from Eagle’s landing camera, it’s orientation with respect to the surface of the Moon, and even Neil Armstrong’s heart rate (which, understandably, increases the closer he gets to the surface.)
Best of all, all of this is played back in real-time, so you get a sense of all of the events that were happening simultaneously on the Moon and in the Mission Operations Control Room in Houston. While the rest of the world watched and held their breath, these men were working feverishly yet diligently to bring Eagle to a safe landing – even as they were rapidly running out of fuel on the descent engine.
It’s a riveting watch. Though I’ve seen similar playbacks before, I found myself yet again watching and even holding my breath at times as the events unfolded. It’s an amazing fusion of data, events, and history. Most of all, it’s a reminder that we did this. We sent humans to the Moon.
And we can do it again, if we choose to.
