Happy Moonday
July 20th should, by all rights, be a major American holiday. Moreover, it should be a day commemorated by the entire world -- the day men from Earth first set foot on another world.
As always, Rand Simberg provides some good advice on how to commemorate the day properly. He also has some reflections on the Apollo program, and on the space shuttle. Rand suggests that there are more mistakes that need to be owned up to than have been to date. He concludes with these hopeful thoughts:
Before too many more Apollo XI anniversaries roll by, I suspect that there will be many non-NASA personnel on the moon, visiting it with their own money, for their own purposes. And they won't be getting there in little capsules on large vehicles, that are thrown away after a single use.
I'm kind of hoping they'll be using this (at least for part of the trip), although I'm not sure it's quite what Rand has in mind.
UPDATE: Click the Google graphic to go to "Google: Moon." Google is using their Maps engine to let you wander around the Moon. Particularly the Apollo landing sites.