Geez. These modules are full-scale, custom-everything, and can be based on specific Apollo missions. I really don't think I've wanted a toy this much since the first Lego Mindstorms set. [Space Toys via Geekologie]

Very few Gizmodo readers were even born when Rockwell painted his last Saturday Evening Post cover, but we all know them. You hear that name and suddenly you can picture those overly detailed, cartoonishly dramatic but ultimately kinda corny depictions of American life. Well, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, written and compiled by Ron Schick, has given me immense newfound respect for the man, for the meticulous photography, the real people and the unintentionally hilarious DIY props and sets that he required to make his painted fantasies of Americana come true.

The book is not about painting. Rockwell's oil-on-canvas work feels like an afterthought for Schick, who mostly documents Rockwell's photography and art direction. Throughout the book, you see a painting, then you see the photographs he took to make that painting. In most cases, many shots comprise the different elements, and are joined together only in paint. It's almost sad: Vivid interactions between people, remembered jointly in the country's collective consciousness, may never have taken place. Even people facing each other at point blank range were photographed separately, and might never have even met.

The photos are as memorable as the paintings: There's a little boy whose feet are propped up on thick books, a walking still-life; there's a naked lady who ended up a mermaid in a lobster trap; there are men and women in various states of frustration, concentration and bliss, whose facial expressions defined Rockwell's style. These were mostly not agency models, but friends and neighbors who were pleased to help out, but not always thrilled by the finished product.

Since Rockwell was one of the most commercially successful artists of all time, you can imagine the rights to all of his images (paintings and photos) are carefully managed. The publisher was kind enough to let us show you the book cover plus two additional pairings, below. I encourage you to buy the book ($26.40 at Amazon)—what you see here is just a quick lick of the spoon:

Going and Coming, 1947
You'll notice the book jacket shows a painting of a family embarking on a summer vacation—Granny, Spot and all—coupled with a photo of a similar scene with far less action. There's a kid sticking out of the car in both, but many family members are missing. This is because they were photographed separately, in Rockwell's studio, and painted in where needed. (You'll also notice that the photo on the jacket is reversed—the car was pointed in the other direction but I suppose that wouldn't have looked as cool.)

Circus, 1955
What I liked about this picture is that you get to see how ridiculous Rockwell's sets could often be. He needed real faces, but he could fill in the rest. Hence piling chairs up on top of an old desk to simulate bleachers at the circus. Good thing nobody fell off the back and sued ole Rocky for millions—that twine used to hold the little girl's chair in place doesn't look OSHA certified. If the geeky looking fellow in the front looks familiar, it's because Rockwell himself served as a model for his paintings all the time.

The Final Impossibility: Man's Tracks on the Moon, 1969
Yep, here's proof that the moon landing was faked. At least, Rockwell's commemorative portrait of it was. NASA loved his work, so they loaned him spacesuits and helmets whenever he wanted, and for this, he got permission to photograph his models moonwalking around an Apollo Lunar Lander, with a black tarp doubling for infinity and beyond. Remember, this is when Apollo was new and the Cold War was in full swing, so getting access to the latest NASA toys took clout.

Behind the Camera covers many aspects of Rockwell that I had not known about previously. He was an outspoken civil rights activist, and many of his paintings dealt with race relations. There is a painting of two murdered men, one black and one white, accompanied by an almost absurd photo of two very alive guys lying side by side, eyes closed, on a carpet. There's another painting of a little black girl being walked to school by US Marshals, and the many different closeup shots Rockwell required to paint the extreme detail of the tense, potent—and fabricated—moment.

I wish I could run a gallery of 100 shots from this book, because each page startled me in a different way. Meeting the real people behind the paintings, and learning that every painting was composed of masterfully planned photographs—always black and white, since the artist let his imagination add the color—I will no longer take Norman Rockwell for granted. In fact, I'm gonna kinda worship him from now on. [Amazon sales page; Little, Brown product page]

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.

Not one—The New Nation, a newspaper from Bangladesh—but two—the Daily Manab Zamin, who ran the story in Bengali—published the whole story quoting the "Onion News Network, Lebanon, Ohio." They reprinted the whole thing, starting with the headline: Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked.

Their excuse: "We thought it was true so we printed it without checking."

Frankly, I understand them. After all, if it is in in the internet, it must be real.

What is even more worrying is that there are a couple of Gizmodo readers—now banned—who actually believed the whole thing when we published it as a joke, and then used it as an argument in the story of Chandrayaan-1's image on the Apollo 15 landing site. [Wired UK]

Click images to enlarge.

This image was one of the last photographs sent by Chandrayaan-1, the moon probe that stopped communicating with Earth last Saturday. It clearly shows the Apollo 15 rover tracks on the Moon surface.

So there you go: A third party confirms the landings. Happy now, you conspiracy retards? No? I don't care. Just stop writing stupid emails justifying your idiotic arguments trying to prove that Armstrong didn't walk on the moon (because he did, and he has the photo and the t-shirt to prove it). [The Times of India]

The dude's nearly 80 years old by the way. He's dual-wielding cellphones, flyin', rappin', and punching out lunatics. I want to be like him when I grow up. [Up Ship Thanks Jonathan!]

Designed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and built by Raytheon, the Apollo Guiding Computer was the most advanced computer of its time. It ran a multitasking operating system called EXEC, capable of executing eight jobs simultaneously. What you are seeing above is just the visible part of it, the Dsky user interface, which was mounted in both the Command Module and the Lunar Module. The astronauts had to enter commands and data for the AGC to process using that keyboard, which also gave them feedback beyond the other million lights and indicators in the cockpits.

Back 40 years ago yesterday, the AGC ran into some unexpected problems: Executive overflows alarms fired up, caused by too many interrupts from the rendezvous radar. This radar was intentionally turned on by the astronauts in case there was a need to abort the mission fast. However, this data—coupled with the landing radar's stream—overloaded the AGC causing some commands to be delayed.

As we know Armstrong and Aldrin saved the day, helped by ground control and the programmers. The Eagle landed safely and they all lived happily ever after. If it were 1969, they would still be up there now.

You can try to build your own Apollo Guidance Computer following John Pultorak's full, and exhaustive and huge and dizzying, step-by-step instructions here. [Galaxiki via Universe Today—Image via ibiblio]

Check our complete Apollo 11 coverage here

The suits shown here are part of a collection of Apollo-era artifacts on display right now at the National Air and Space Museum.

The exhibit is part of a 40th anniversary celebration for the event that attention-seeking idiots say never happened so that they can get a few extra clicks and adSense dollars on their crock conspiracy theory web site. Tons more pics over at io9. Can we go back now, please? [io9]

Jesus Diaz: Would the LRO return images of the moon landings when it flies over them?
Grey Hautaluoma (NASA Headquarters, Office of Public Affairs): Yes, it will. We don't have a timeline yet for viewing the Apollo sites, but it will be in the near future.

There you have it. Soon we will have photos showing the remains of the Apollo Lunar Modules, also known as LEM (Lunar Excursion Module.) Built by Grumman Aircraft Engineering, the Lunar Module was 20.9-foot tall, with a 14 feet diameter and a landing gear span of 29.75 feet.

However, the Lunar Reconnoissance Orbiter will only be able to take photos of what is known as the Descent Stage, the bottom part of the LEM that housed the main propulsion system. This part was left on the Moon's surface, while the Ascent Stage launched after each mission to rendezvous with the Command Module orbiting around the Moon.

Other remains left on the Moon include the Lunar Roving Vehicles, used in the Apollo J-class missions: Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17. Since they are 3-meter long, the LRO will be able to distinguish them as well.

Of course, the conspiracy theorist will say it's all Photoshop and 3D now. I wish I can do like Buzz Aldrin and smack each and everyone of them.

During the Apollo XII mission, Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr and Lunar Module pilot Alan L. Bean found naked pinups in one of the pages of their checklist. It reportedly made them laugh hysterically while command module pilot Richard F. Gordon, Jr. listened from his orbit around the Moon.

The reason for their surprise was in the fact that—while the main crew prepared them—these Extra-Vehicular Activity checklists were packed before the flight by the mission backup crew. They placed the easter eggs without them knowing it at all.

The drawing here is part of Haise's checklist, whch can be yours if you get $200,000 to $300,000 by July 16. That's when it's going up for auction at Bonhams, in London, UK.

The clip here showing Apollo XII's Conrad and Bean is from the hilarious part 7 of From The Earth to the Moon. If you have never watched the TV miniseries, do it. I can't stress enough how incredibly good they are.

[Daylife—Thanks Genevieve]

It's such a short time before the skies over Florida will no longer thunder to the sound of the Space Shuttle's main engines under full thrust. But that doesn't mean that after September 16, 2010, there will be any letup in the requirements to put people and hardware into orbit. What ships are in line to hop into the venerable old Shuttle's shoes? Five, at last count, all with their own talents and differences.

Check out each photo in the gallery, a dossier of facts about the next vehicles that will take us and our crap into orbit, and possibly to the moon and Mars:

And there you have it. Though none of these Space Shuttle replacements appears quite as glamorous or high-tech, each is special in its own way—and with any luck they could all be cheaper and more reliable in getting people and hardware into space. Orion, of course, has a historic future ahead of it, as it follows in the Apollo program's footsteps and takes man back to the Moon.

Additional Resources and Photo Sources:
Orion: NASA and Wikipedia
Dragon: SpaceX and Wikipedia
Cygnus: Orbital and Wikipedia
PPTS: Russian Space Web and Wikipedia
Kliper: Russian Space Web and Wikipedia

In order to do this they needed something to play the tapes. Fortunately, they were able to procure an old Ampex tape player that was discovered in a chicken coop and restore it with the help of the original designer. The footage taken during the Apollo missions is still the best imagery we have of the surface of the moon—and restoring this footage has become extremely important given NASA's plans to re-map the surface of the moon, hunt for new landing sites and find an area to set up a permanent human base. [thelivingmoon via Metafilter via Waxy via Nerdcore]

Forty years ago the crew of the Apollo 8 was—right now—on their trip back to Earth after the successful mission that took them to the Moon. In the Command Module, Mission Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell—who later became Mission Commander for the ill-fated Apollo 13—, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders were probably talking about what they just did in their four-day trip. Or maybe they were just sitting there, checking buttons and counters, in silence, reflecting on their journey, the most amazing ever in the history of mankind.

Like all great trips, theirs came completely out of the blue. Originally, they weren't going to the Moon at all. Apollo 8 was going to be a low-earth orbit to test the Lunar Module and Command Module but, since the Lunar Module wasn't ready, NASA decided to change the mission objectives and send the crew to the Moon. As a result, they had to retrain in record time for a completely new mission.

They did, they were cool, and they kicked ass, becoming the first three humans to see the dark side of the Moon a whole five years before Pink Floyd had their other trip to the Dark Side of the Moon. Their unexpected voyage was the first ever to escape Earth's gravitational force and visit another celestial body. And if you kids think that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Fortunately, nothing went wrong and their risky odyssey saved 1968 along with Johnny Cash's live concert at Folsom Prison—a terrible year in which the Vietnam War exploded, the Soviet Union invaded Prague, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, and Richard Nixon was elected the thirty-seventh President of the United States.

Here's the original press release and the illustrations from the 101-page press kit announcing the crazy mission:

Back on Earth, Neil Amstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Fred Haise Jr.—their backup crew—were probably waiting, maybe talking with them from ground control.

And that, my friends, that's a complete different story for next year.

The Price: $250

The Verdict: I'm pretty sure it works. Unlike normal things we review, which can (for the most part) be expressed quantitatively, a device that raises your mood is by nature, subjective. But this little blue clock has noticeably eliminated my seasonally-created low energy, low mood and a general sluggishness in the past few weeks.

The goLITE is supposed to be placed about 15 degrees off center to where your attention is—the monitor, in our case. You use one of the four brightness settings for somewhere between 15-30 minutes (or more if you like) every day in order to simulate the missing sun. The light works through your eyes, which explains why it needs to be in your field of view. Even at the lowest setting, this thing is bright as hell, so avoid looking directly at it.

Whether or not I'm actually feeling better because the blue light's rays are working or it's just me and the placebo effect wanting myself to feel better, I don't know. But there are other reviews out there that say that it works. And I believe this does. My energy is up, I don't feel as depressed, and as a result, I don't feel like I'm trudging through the day.

The $250 price tag may seem like quite a bit to pay for something you only use 30 minutes a day, but think of it like this. We buy electronics all the time in order to give ourselves and emotional boost; the goLite is one that's actually designed for that purpose. [Light Therapy and Amazon]

What you're seeing above is a test of this new ejector seat system, dubbed the Launch Abort System. It burns through half of its fuel in three seconds flat, NASA says, but then again if you're escaping from an exploding, disintegrating tin can filled with jet fuel, that's kind of the idea.

Fun fact: Like much of the Orion capsule/Areas rocket program, this ejector mechanism is also an example of NASA going back in time to deliver tomorrow's explorers to the moon. In the LAS's case, the Apollo program's old-school abort system is the inspiration. [Wired]

November 9, 1967, T-minus 8.9 seconds: Thousands of gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen begin coursing through the giant center F1 rocket engine: The Saturn V's ignition sequence has begun. Next, two outer engines are lit, followed 300 milliseconds later by the other two, ignited in pairs to avoid toppling the 364-foot rocket above. Nine seconds after all five engines go to full thrust, the first Saturn V rocket begins to lift from the launchpad, taking the unmanned Apollo 4 check-out module into space.

The launch was flawless. Forty-one years ago to the day, the Saturn V became the biggest, tallest, largest-payload rocket ever to be sent into space. Even more amazingly, it still is.

If you talk about the Moon landings, some people remember Armstrong and Aldrin landing on the moon, and may think of the photo of that famous footprint, or the planting of the flag. I choose to remember the rocket that enabled it all, the Saturn V, a pretty shocking mechanical masterpiece all by itself.

Nearly everything about it is monumental in scale and historic in importance:

• At 364 feet high, it was roughly as tall as a 36-story building.

• Its launch weight of 6.7 million pounds was equal to about 2,200 average late '60s cars.

• Its orbital payload of 260,000 pounds is the equivalent of about 1,500 average people.

It was designed under the supervision of the rocket man, Wernher von Braun, and was chosen in 1963 from a list of potential systems proposed to make good President Kennedy's promise that a man would visit the moon within a decade.

The rocket was so very large that it required NASA to build the Vertical Assembly Building, one of the world's largest buildings. It had to be constructed in three stages, could hold four Saturn Vs at the same time, and was reportedly so large that it had its own weather systems. It's still used to put Space Shuttle stacks together, and will house the upcoming Ares series rockets too. It's also home to the four largest doors in the world.

The Saturn V's first-stage rockets—five F1s made by Rocketdyne—are the most powerful single-nozzle liquid fueled rocket engines ever to see service. The engine bell for each was over 12 feet across. Each engine developed 1.5 million pounds of thrust, drinking over 670 gallons of fuel mixture per second: That's enough to empty your typical 30,000-gallon swimming pool in around 45 seconds. The F1 even makes the more modern Shuttle seem wimpy, since each F1 had more thrust than all three Shuttle main engines combined.

Its second-stage rockets—five J2s, also by Rocketdyne—were the largest liquid-hydrogen rocket engines in their day, and remained so until the Space Shuttle's main engines were built. The J2s were also the first rocket engines that were able to restart in mid-flight.

In comparison, America's first manned rocket, the Redstone, was about the same length as the final stage of the Saturn V. Redstone was actually less powerful than the emergency escape rockets on the manned capsule atop the Saturn V. (I suppose it's important to note, too, that those escape rockets never had to be used.) And Redstone's maiden liftoff was only 14 years before the Saturn V's, which shows the tremendous speed of NASA's rocket program in the '50s and '60s.

Here's a great comparison chart of the world's biggest and best rockets:

Even the Space Shuttle, deemed by some the most complex machine humans have yet built, doesn't compare to the Saturn V. And if you're wondering what the unlabeled black rocket in the middle is, it's Saturn V's competitor, the Soviet N1 moon-shot rocket. This had four attempted launches, none successful. Part of this was due to lack of management and funding, but part had to do with its incredibly complex first-stage design, which required the synchronized firing of 30 separate rocket engines.

Perhaps most amazing of all facts about the Saturn V is that each of its 12 main Saturn V launches was successful. Two of them suffered in-flight problems including engine cutoffs, but the on-board computers were able to compensate, resulting in a successful mission. The rocket was even considered at one point to act as a prototype for the first stage of the Space shuttle, thereby requiring no solid-rocket boosters. If that had happened, the 1986 disaster that befell Challenger would never have happened.

There were also plans for several post-Saturn V projects on the drawing boards. The best was a super-massive variant with eight engines in each of the first two stages, capable of launching all the International Space-Station hardware to orbit in one shot. Sadly, for political and financial reasons, all variants were canceled.

Today, there are other contenders as NASA suits up for the next moon shot. Though not as tall as its predecessor, the massive Ares V rocket, child of NASA's somewhat troubled Constellation program, is technically able to put 414,000 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit.

But until the Ares V flies, the Saturn V remains king of rockets. Call me overly nostalgic (or pessimistic, seeing as Ares is well underway), but I'm inclined to think the Saturn V may well keep that title forever.

Gemini VI, Gemini VII, Gemini VIII, Gemini IX, Gemini X, Gemini XI, Gemini XII, Apollo 7, Apollo 8, Apollo 9 “Gumdrop & Spider”, Apollo 10 “Snoopy and Charlie Brown”, Apollo 11 “Columbia and Eagle”, Apollo 12 “Intrepid and Yankee Clipper”, Apollo 13 “Odyssey and Aquarius”, Apollo 14 “Kitty Hawk and Antares”, Apollo 15 “Endeavour and Falcon”, Apollo 16 “Casper and Orion”, Apollo 17 “America and Challenger”, Skylab 1, Skylab 2, and Skylab 3

They are being sold on eBay for $125,000. To give you an idea of how much these precision time machines are worth, the previous set in the series was sold in Switzerland last year for 368,900 Swiss Francs. A whooping $313,000 and they are not even the ones that went into space. []

This capsule won't leave Earth's atmosphere: it will be used in a 90-second flight to demonstrate the features of the new ship, built using the same concept as the Apollo capsule but on a much larger scale. The Orion is 16.5 feet in diameter, with a mass of 22.7 metric tons, which gives it "two and a half times the volume" inside the Apollo capsule.

Knowing how small Apollo was, it's not going to be the Enterprise flight deck, but it will be able to fit four crew members comfortably starting in 2014, the year in which it will travel to the International Space Station. Six years later, it will go to the moon. [NASA]