Apollo In Real Time

Looking back at the events of Apollo, 50 years to the day.

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A belated thank you for those of you who stuck with Apollo in Real Time over the past year. I was hoping to continue on at least to Apollo 12, but gosh, this took far more time than what I expected. Trust me on this. I might do Apollo 13 though.

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The Mariner 6 spacecraft has just made its closest approach to Mars at only 2130 miles. Mariner 7 will follow in two days. (Mariner 6 would return a total of 75 images. ed.)

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57 year old former SS officer, Josef Blosche, was executed today in East Germany. Blosche was responsible for rounding up Jewish civilians in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943.

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50 years ago this day (1919), the International Astronomical Union was founded in Paris. It is the IAU job to standardize names of various astronomical objects or planetary features such as approving the naming of craters after the Apollo 11 crew.

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The lunar sample return containers ("rockbox") have just arrived at the Lunar Receiving Lab at Houston.

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The next lunar landing mission, Apollo 12, is given the go ahead for a November 14 launch.

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The crew is arriving on deck of the Hornet. https://t.co/3I8O3iwqXo

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We have splashdown!

https://t.co/j4ZOcCm4KZ

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https://t.co/5yD2I4RbQ9

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T-2 minutes until entry-interface. Pictured is the EMS, Entry Monitoring System, that uses a scrolling graph showing where the spacecraft is in the entry corridor.

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And we have sep. Columbia is now flying alone. The service module will burn up in the atmosphere.

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Standing by for command module/service module sep. https://t.co/Wz5EgUCPXO

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https://t.co/XXpwW46sSB

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Neil Armstrong's suit at the Smithsonian.

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Looks like we have some onboard TV coming down. We got a little bit from Goldstone a few minutes ago, but couldn't lock onto the signal well enough. https://t.co/mB2GSyIbAv

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Right now, Apollo 11 is at the exact midpoint between the earth and the moon: 102888 nautical miles from the moon, 102888 from the earth. Or about 118320 statute miles from each.

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NASA announced today the first US space station, Skylab, will make use of a spare Saturn V in 1972.