Apollo Plus 40

Posted By Timothy Reed

2009/06/18 12:05 CDT

Topics: history, the Moon, NASA lunar missions before 2005

Timothy Reed is an optical engineer living in Boulder, Colorado. He worked for 20 years developing spaceflight imaging systems and was a major contributor to HiRISE, JWST, NICMOS, QuickBird, Space Shuttle microgravity payloads, and the Pancam mast on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. He is currently working in the field of holographic optical data storage, and pursuing graduate studies in atmospheric science at the University of Colorado. Timothy has acted in classical theatre for several decades, won medals in luge competitions, and been the voice of a cartoon character.

Back in January, Emily reported on a then-new blog begun by Scott Maxwell, one of the Mars Exploration Rover drivers, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Spirit's landing. Scott's blog, "Mars and Me" is a daily chronicle of the mission events posted day-for-day (or Mars sol-for-sol) as they happened five years ago. (Check it out, it's entertaining and has enough fiddly details in it to keep the engineer in me mesmerized!)

In a similar vein, the editors of Nature have today begun their ApolloPlus40 blog and Twitter feed that will follow in real time the technical, political, and world events surrounding Apollo 11's race to the Moon and back as it happened 40 years ago.