At last, Neil Armstrong will be able to wear his "Been There, Done That" t-shirt with pride. After all, we never saw his face through the solar visor in any of the lunar walk photos. Until today.
This weird and never-before-seen photo was taken by the top camera of the Eagle. As Armstrong walked his first steps across the surface of the Sea of Tranquility, on that little dusty ball of cheese we like to call the Moon.
The image is really one frame of a film that has been transferred to high definition by Spacecraft Films. It's now being released in Voices from the Moon, a book by Andrew Chaikin, one of my favorite space authors.
In case you have been living in a cave for the past few decades, today is the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing. The Apollo 11 was the biggest adventure and technological challenge ever, bringing three humans—mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.—to our satellite.
Here they are then:
And here they are now:
Click to viewThey don't make them like these anymore, I'm afraid. [Voices from the Moon and Andrew Chaikin]