By David Ponce

Our old pal James Grahame from Retro Thing recently released three T-shirt designs. This is what he has to say about them:

After months of top secret R&D, we’re proud to unveil three limited edition Retro Thing shirt designs. They were created pixel-by-pixel on a curmudgeonly old Atari 130XE, ensuring maximum authenticity and the most convoluted workflow since the Apollo missions.

Each pixel tee is screen printed on a heavyweight 6.1oz Gildan Ultra Cotton shirt in Madison, Wisconsin by a genuine American named Rick. There’s no digitally printed tomfoolery here, nor are our shirts made by 3-week-old kittens slaving at gunpoint in North Korean sweatshops.

We’re big fans, so head over there before December 8th to order yours, for all of $14.

[ Product Page ]

This is the Duke family. The father, Charles Moss Duke, Jr. born October 3, 1935. The mom, Dorothy Meade Claiborne. The two sons, Charles and Thomas. They are probably in their garden, sitting on a bench. They look so happy.

And they should be, because Charles Moss Duke was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972. He landed with mission commander John W. Young at the Descartes Highlands, which is what makes this photo so special: It’s still there, untouched, unperturbed, exactly in the same position as he left it before taking this snapshot with his Hasselblad 70mm film camera.

I didn’t know about this fantastic photo until a couple of days ago, ignorant that I am. Following the advice of my friend Adán—who is a space exploration fanboy like me—I bought an amazing book called Full Moon. It shows the trip to the moon through 128 brunch-bacon-crispy photographs, many of them giant four-page spreads containing fascinating panoramas. All clean, pitch black background, no text. Like the silence of space.

Full Moon is not a new book: It was curated and published in 1999 by Michael Light. It contains the first and only digital scans of the Apollo missions’ original camera film. See, when these images returned from space, NASA copied each of the photos, then stored the original film right away for future scanning. Every lunar photo you have seen out there are copies made from copies of the originals.

The vaults were opened for Light and this book for the first time. He went through all of the original transparencies, selected what he thought were the best, scanned them using the best digital equipment available, created the spread panoramas when needed, and printed this book. The quality is so perfect, and the selection so good, that I can’t recommend it highly enough.

So there I was, sitting in amazement, slowly flipping through the amazing views, and then I found this. It instantly caught my attention. The idea of leaving such a happy photo in the surface of such a inhospitable place filled me with a mix of happiness, sadness, and much, much nostalgia. I instantly remembered another image like that. Surely, that image must have been inspired by Duke’s original shot:

You can buy Full Moon here. Actually, you must.

The moment that man stepped foot on the moon is definitely one of the more admirable historical moments of all time. Being that it is so admirable and so absolutely intriguing that this event actually occurred; many people want to learn more about it. Apollo 11 trivia is helpful to those who want to learn a great deal of information about this voyage into space in a very short period of time. In fact, several of the facts that you would learn through trivia would take you hours, if not days, to find in a book – or even surfing online.

One of the main focuses of the Apollo 11 quiz is the fact that it was the first mission to carry humans to the moon. It was on this voyage that the famous words, “That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind,” were uttered by Neil Armstrong as he became the first human being to ever set foot on the moon.

Do you know the name of the lunar module used in Apollo 11? Its name was “Eagle”; named after the United States national bird. The name “Columbia” was chosen for the larger command module.

Another interesting piece of Apollo 11 trivia is the fact that the Apollo missions had actually been ongoing and this was actually the fifth mission of Project Apollo that involved human spaceflight. Aside from that, it was also the third voyage by humans to the moon; however, no human had ever stepped foot on the moon until this specific voyage.

The Apollo 11’s lunar module, Eagle, landed on the surface of the moon on the 20^th of July, 1969. It landed at approximately 20:17:40 UTC. An interesting fact is that the Eagle had barely enough fuel left for 25 seconds more, as the two men had encountered some difficulties during landing due to their training at NASA. Things were quite a bit different in reality and the several alarms that were going off certainly didn’t help to calm the already likely nerve-wracking maneuver.

The crew was able to complete the mission, which would have put a big smile on the face of former President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy had set a goal to put a man on the moon prior to the end of the decade (1960’s) and this goal had now not only been fulfilled, but broadcast worldwide for any who wished to see the triumphant event. Clearly, this amazing feat proves that anything is possible.

The moment that man stepped foot on the moon is definitely one of the more admirable historical moments of all time. Being that it is so admirable and so absolutely intriguing that this event actually occurred; many people want to learn more about it. Apollo 11 trivia is helpful to those who want to learn a great deal of information about this voyage into space in a very short period of time. In fact, several of the facts that you would learn through trivia would take you hours, if not days, to find in a book – or even surfing online.

One of the main focuses of the Apollo 11 quiz is the fact that it was the first mission to carry humans to the moon. It was on this voyage that the famous words, “That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind,” were uttered by Neil Armstrong as he became the first human being to ever set foot on the moon.

Do you know the name of the lunar module used in Apollo 11? Its name was “Eagle”; named after the United States national bird. The name “Columbia” was chosen for the larger command module.

Another interesting piece of Apollo 11 trivia is the fact that the Apollo missions had actually been ongoing and this was actually the fifth mission of Project Apollo that involved human spaceflight. Aside from that, it was also the third voyage by humans to the moon; however, no human had ever stepped foot on the moon until this specific voyage.

The Apollo 11’s lunar module, Eagle, landed on the surface of the moon on the 20^th of July, 1969. It landed at approximately 20:17:40 UTC. An interesting fact is that the Eagle had barely enough fuel left for 25 seconds more, as the two men had encountered some difficulties during landing due to their training at NASA. Things were quite a bit different in reality and the several alarms that were going off certainly didn’t help to calm the already likely nerve-wracking maneuver.

The crew was able to complete the mission, which would have put a big smile on the face of former President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy had set a goal to put a man on the moon prior to the end of the decade and this goal had now not only been fulfilled, but broadcast worldwide for any who wished to see the triumphant event. Clearly, this feat proves that anything is possible.

This is the very first photo that shows an astronaut’s face while on the Moon as their faces are hidden behind a visor in every other picture. This one is actually a single frame from a video that was being shot from the Lunar Lander and has been converted from film to high-def by Spacecraft Films for Andrew Chailkin’s new book, Voices from the Moon.

As it turns out, Neil Armstrong was the one generally with the camera and most of the photos from the Apollo 11 missions are of Buzz, the second man on the Moon. It’s a good thing that this newly released image will probably go down in history as one of the top, iconic images from that first mission.

There has been a good deal of focus on the Moon lately. First, the LRO sent back high-res photos of the surface, which was followed by the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the release of restored video footage from the Moon. Then the LRO produced the first photos of the equipment left behind from the Apollo missions and Walter Cronkite, the trusted voice who informed America about the events, passed away.

The LA Times is keeping the buzz alive with a fantastic article about the construction of the Saturn V rocket that shot the astronauts to the Moon.

“What set us apart was our ability to build a very big rocket to get us to the moon,” said Roger Launius, the Smithsonian Institution’s space historian, reflecting on the U.S.’ race with the then-Soviet Union to reach the moon first. “The Russians were never able to do that.”

If you think about it, that’s about as accurate as it gets. Our engineers who were backed by a massive budget, out-developed the Soviets with the Saturn V rocket. Well done, boys. Well done.