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Hitting the Books: How NASA helped JFK build his 'Nation of Immigrants'
After Apollo: Cultural Legacies of the Race to the Moon, explores the myriad ways that putting a man on the moon changed the American Experience.
Third-party Reddit app Apollo will shut down on June 30th
Reddit's controversial decision to charge for API access has led the creator of Apollo to shut down the third-party app. 'Apollo will close down on June 30th,' Christian Selig wrote. 'Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue.'
Walter Cunningham, last surviving Apollo 7 astronaut, dies at 90
Walter Cunningham, last surviving astronaut of the Apollo 7 mission, died on Tuesday at 90.
Apollo 9 commander James McDivitt dies at 93
The NASA astronaut also led the Gemini IV.
People first drove on the Moon 50 years ago today
NASA has marked the 50th anniversary of the Lunar Roving Vehicle's first trip on the Moon — though we wouldn't count on another crewed vehicle any time soon.
Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi service arrives in Beijing
Baidu launched its Apollo Go robotaxi service in the Chinese cities of Changsha and Cangzhou back in August, shortly after announcing that its autonomous driving computer is ready for use on the streets. Now, Apollo Go has also made its way to Beijing, making it the first autonomous car service operating in the nation’s capital. Apollo Go’s service area in Beijing encompasses 435 miles of road with 100 pick-up and drop-off stations across several residential and business areas.
Follow Apollo 13 in real-time on its 50th anniversary
You can relive the near-deadly Moon mission as it happened.
The company behind the robotic arms that help us explore Mars
Despite best efforts, we're still decades if not generations away from regularly living and working off-planet -- whether that's in LEO habitation rings, moon bases, or on the Martian surface. Until humans can colonize space ourselves, we must rely on robotic orbitals, landers and rovers to physically interact with the galaxy around us. As Lucy Condakchian, General Manager of Robotics at Maxar, noted to an assembled audience at TechCrunch Sessions on Tuesday, actually touching the stars is still no easy feat.
After Math: How long is that in moon years?
It's been half an Earth century since humanity first made landfall on its nearest celestial neighbor, and there's plenty of reason to celebrate, but that doesn't mean the news of the world has frozen in place like the flag Apollo 11's crew left behind. A new laser telescope array is hunting for signs of extraterrestrial intelligences, Toyota's spending the next ten years building a Moon rover and this past June got more than a little toasty.
The sneakers inspired by Apollo 11 and the Moon landing
NASA's Apollo 11 has had an outsize influence on our culture since July 20th, 1969. That's the day the spaceflight mission successfully completed its lunar landing, paving the way for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to become the first humans to ever set foot on the Moon. To this day, Apollo 11 remains one of the biggest achievements in the history of space exploration. It's only fitting, then, that those first steps Armstrong and Aldrin took have also made their mark on sneaker culture. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this week, we're showing you some of the best shoes that have drawn inspiration from the mission and its Moon landing. Brands such as Adidas, Nike, New Balance and Vans have all created designs paying homage to this historical feat, in official and unofficial ways. While there are sneakers that NASA has collaborated on, others simply look like they were meant to be Moon boots. Let's take a look and appreciate them one by one.
Did Frankenstein go to the Moon?
There's a mystery at the heart of the first Moon landing. And no, it's not whether the whole thing was staged. Instead, historians are wondering whether a small company in Manchester helped NASA design its iconic Apollo 11 spacesuit.
What to watch to celebrate Apollo 11's 50th anniversary
What better way to celebrate the Moon landing than to gather your family around the couch and relive the experience? Even if you weren't lucky enough to see Neil Armstrong plant his feet on the Moon fifty years ago, there are plenty of films and shows that'll let you recapture the magic of that moment. And if you're not eager to honor the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's momentous mission (you monster), it's still worth reminding yourself of what NASA, and mankind writ large, can do under pressure. The planet might be in the midst of a political and environmental meltdown today, but we managed to walk on the Moon once, damnit. It's all a reminder there may be hope for us yet.
NASA's plan to return to the Moon with Project Artemis
On July 21, 1969, the first humans set foot on the Moon. With Neil Armstrong's simple words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," the world changed irrevocably. For a few hours, we existed on multiple worlds. That was fifty years ago. Now, in the shadow of Apollo, we are once again looking to venture back out into the stars, past the low Earth orbit where we've been learning about space over the past few decades. We know better how to live and work in orbit thanks to the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Now NASA says it's time to return to the lunar surface. But this time, it wants to stay there. NASA's Project Artemis (aptly named as the goddess of hunting is Apollo's twin sister) aims to take humans back to the Moon by 2024. But there are many lingering questions about the destination, the goals, the motivations, the project itself, NASA's current readiness level and whether it has the support in Congress to move forward.
NVIDIA revamps Moon landing recreation in time for Apollo 11's 50th
You knew NVIDIA couldn't resist reviving its GPU-based Apollo 11 recreation for the Moon landing's 50th anniversary. Sure enough, the tech firm has updated the demo to take advantage of its RTX ray tracing technology, allowing a more faithful rendition of the moment Buzz Aldrin followed Neil Armstrong to the lunar surface. The biggest improvement, as you might suspect, is the lighting. Real-time raytracing captures how the Sun's rays bounced off the lunar lander and even the spacesuits -- the glowing highlights and varied shadows are closer to what you saw in the TV footage and photos than the slightly dulled look of the 2014 demo.
NASA reopens Apollo mission control in time for Moon landing anniversary
The fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing is rapidly approaching, and NASA is determined to mark it in a fitting way: by restoring the hub of Apollo's operations to its former glory. The agency has reopened Apollo mission control at the Johnson Space Center after a restoration that makes it look like it did in 1969. There's functioning electronics, familiar furniture and other attentions to detail. The New York Times noted that there are even period-appropriate soft drink cans and cigarettes.
'Apollo: Missions to the Moon' documentary includes unheard audio
The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing is coming up, and the National Geographic channel is determined to mark the occasion in style. It's premiering its Apollo: Missions to the Moon documentary in July, and this isn't just a rehash of the footage you've seen countless times. The documentary will cover the Apollo Space Program with raw media instead of narration, and some of it you likely haven't experienced. This includes "never-before-heard" mission audio plucked from 800 hours of recordings as well as video (from NASA, TV and home movies) newly transferred from 500 hours of film. Unless you were fortunate enough to witness events the first time around, this could easily feel fresh.
Baidu's self-driving car platform can handle parking and speed bumps
Baidu is starting 2019 with a big boost to its autonomous vehicle ambitions. It's launching Apollo 3.5, an updated self-driving platform it claims is the first open source system that can handle "complex" driving in both the city and suburbia. It's now better-suited to the challenges of the road, including parking, narrow lanes and speed bumps. You won't have to wait too long to see it in action -- Udelv is is planning to roll out as many as 100 test vehicles across the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the US.
Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean dies
It's a somber day for spaceflight, as NASA astronaut Alan Bean has died at the age of 86 after falling ill during a trip. He was the fourth person to walk on the Moon, flying aboard Apollo 12, and proved crucial to humanity's understanding of its closest celestial neighbor. He was the only geologist to have walked on the Moon and provided an immensely valuable collection of samples that inform lunar geology to this day. He also led the second of three Skylab crews, staying a then record-setting 59 days as he survayed both the Earth's resources and the Sun.
Baidu debuts its Apollo 2.0 autonomous driving platform
Baidu already bills itself as "the Google of China" and, like the Mountain View-based search giant, it's working feverishly to develop autonomous driving technologies. At CES on Monday, Baidu unveiled the fruits of its (and more than 90 industry partners') labor: the Apollo 2.0 platform.
Original Space Shuttle commander John Young dies
Spaceflight just lost one of its better-known icons: NASA astronaut John Young has died at the age of 87. He was best known as the commander of the first Space Shuttle mission, taking Columbia into orbit in 1981. However, that was just one of a series of achievements. He flew on the first manned flight of the Gemini spacecraft in 1965 (and led a flight in 1966), traveled to the Moon twice (including a moonwalk during Apollo 16) and played a key role in the rescue of Apollo 13 by helping to stretch out its resources. On his record-setting sixth and last spaceflight, when he flew the first Spacelab module into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, he both avoided a mid-flight disaster and landed while an auxiliary power unit was on fire.
