Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Expedition

Sounds like an awesome expedition. Sincerely hope to be there for the jump off, depending on how long it takes to get back from DW2, and repaint my ship as the Starbug.
 
But is the amount of work required going to be the obstacle, or is there any lore reason why they couldn't?
In Frontier and FFE the moon had a base, Apollonius City, that was mostly underground with some surface structures. According to lore it housed the Museum Of Humanity containing early space artefacts, but I never checked whether it was located at any of the Apollo sites. I'm sure someone else will have. The lore is from the gazetteer; In the games you could only land at the spaceport.

If we ever get a landable Moon in ED I'd expect most if not all of the historical landing sites to be preserved under some sort of vehicle-inaccessible structure, like the domes at some Engineer bases, otherwise there'll be CMDRs everywhere smashing into Apollo descent stages and Lunokhods and/or complaining about the lack of realism when they bounce off them.

And if it is the work required, why haven't they been chipping away at it for ages? (rhetorical question!!)
Many of us have been hoping that they've been doing just that since Horizons, although the enthusiasm has waned a little in recent years.

I've got to admit, a surprise landable Moon for Apollo 11's 50th anniversary would be one hell of a PR win for the game. If FD didn't think to start working on this a few years ago, I bet they're kicking themselves now.
 
Yeah, I've been really hoping for a landable moon. Three of my ships are named after the Apollo missions and they're just itching to make the descent: Yankee Clipper and Intrepid (Apollo 12's CSM and LM respectively) and Kitty Hawk (Apollo 14's CSM). As a huge Apollo junkie I'm planning on making this journey but haven't officially signed up yet.
 
I've got to admit, a surprise landable Moon for Apollo 11's 50th anniversary would be one hell of a PR win for the game. If FD didn't think to start working on this a few years ago, I bet they're kicking themselves now.

At the very least they could add a piece of Apollo hardware to visit like we can for the Voyager probes. Apollo 10's LM "Snoopy" and some Saturn V third stages were put into a heliocentric orbit.
 
I'm in :)

In January I extracted the coordinates of the landing from the NASA website:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsjcoords.html
I am out in the black ATM so haven't tried to visit yet.

Perhaps we should have a 'where were you when Apollo 11 landed on the moon'? - I was on a Shell oil tanker in the Atlantic en-route to Trinidad :cool:
edit: just realised age is relevant here … :eek:

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I went to a neighbors home because they had color TV and we didn't. I used a 35mm camera - yes! with FILM!! - and took photos of the the TV screen to record the landing. I still have those 35mm slides in the closet.

A few years ago, my son was selected as a regional NASA representative in the high school explorer program and was awarded an all expenses paid trip to Kennedy Space Center for himself and a parent (me) for a one week "behind the scenes" tour of the entire space center. It was literally the opportunity of a lifetime as we started the tour on the Mercury launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

We saw EVERYTHING, including control rooms. launch pads, the vehicle assembly building and the vehicle refurb building and stood underneath Discovery and watched the tech work on tiles on the underside of the Shuttle. It was incredible for an old codge like me to be allowed to tour facilities not open to the public and exhilarating to know that it's not likely to ever be made available again.

A bit like owning a Cobra IV
 
I remember it like it was yesterday.

I went to a neighbors home because they had color TV and we didn't. I used a 35mm camera - yes! with FILM!! - and took photos of the the TV screen to record the landing. I still have those 35mm slides in the closet.

A few years ago, my son was selected as a regional NASA representative in the high school explorer program and was awarded an all expenses paid trip to Kennedy Space Center for himself and a parent (me) for a one week "behind the scenes" tour of the entire space center. It was literally the opportunity of a lifetime as we started the tour on the Mercury launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

We saw EVERYTHING, including control rooms. launch pads, the vehicle assembly building and the vehicle refurb building and stood underneath Discovery and watched the tech work on tiles on the underside of the Shuttle. It was incredible for an old codge like me to be allowed to tour facilities not open to the public and exhilarating to know that it's not likely to ever be made available again.

A bit like owning a Cobra IV
Wow, what a trip :)
I recently watched 'First Man' and it brought back the memories of those early times in space flight.
I think I will attempt the expedition in a stripped-out Sidey with no shields. 😉

I recently took this pic, wondering how it would feel for real
7uGbgMQ.png
 
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I'm so jealous of that tour! Both times that I've visited KSC, a lot of areas were not open to the tour. Both visits were soon(-ish) after shuttle accidents (Challenger and Columbia), by random chance.

First Man, and the recent IMAX Apollo 11 Experience were wonderful. Even though First Man takes a few liberties, it got quite a lot right too.
 
I'm so jealous of that tour! Both times that I've visited KSC, a lot of areas were not open to the tour. Both visits were soon(-ish) after shuttle accidents (Challenger and Columbia), by random chance.

First Man, and the recent IMAX Apollo 11 Experience were wonderful. Even though First Man takes a few liberties, it got quite a lot right too.

I was a little disappointed in First Man, loved the book but the movie seemed more focused on his marriage than space exploration. It needed more space and less Claire Foy in my opinion. I saw Apollo 11 in IMAX and absolutely loved it though, already have the Blu Ray pre-ordered.
 
I'm so jealous of that tour! Both times that I've visited KSC, a lot of areas were not open to the tour. Both visits were soon(-ish) after shuttle accidents (Challenger and Columbia), by random chance.

First Man, and the recent IMAX Apollo 11 Experience were wonderful. Even though First Man takes a few liberties, it got quite a lot right too.

I must admit I was near tears of joy and emotionally overwhelmed the entire week, as I realized that they don't often allow visitors on Cape Canaveral anymore. At the Mercury pad, we actually went into the launch bunker and saw the old Burroughs computers that did the trajectory calculations that were also verified by Katherine Johnson, who we also had the privilege of meeting at a private luncheon with Nichelle Nichols also in attendance, long before the movie was even announced. One of the computers memory panels was pulled out and you could see the WIRED transistors on the board, eight to a panel the size of a large window fan, each one being a bit and each panel being a byte. From the Mercury pad we traveled to all the other sights on Cape Canaveral and actually stood under the platform where Grisom, Chaffe, and White died in the Apollo fire.

We were actually supposed to witness the last shuttle launch on our final day, but it got postponed. That, of course. would have made the whole experience beyond believable.

Our guide was a NASA historian who knew the history of NASA at incredible depth and was the perfect host. He maintains a database of Nasa artifacts and their current locations. I could go on and on - all thanks to my son who worked incredibly hard to earn the right to be the Goddard Center student representative for the week. One representative from the Explorer program was selected from each center due to budget cuts. In prior years, groups of students who earned it, went to a summer camp, without their parents. Talk about timing.

Subsequently, there was no program available the next year so my son, then a junior in high school, applied for and received a college level internship for the next summer at Langley Research Center.

Yes - I be blessed.
 
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At the Mercury pad, we actually went into the launch bunker and saw the old Burroughs computers that did the trajectory calculations that were also verified by Katherine Johnson, who we also had the privilege of meeting at a private luncheon with Nichelle Nichols also in attendance, long before the movie was even announced.

Oh man, the envy deepens! Excellent. :)
 
I was thinking of meeting up with DW2 and going out to Beagle point but I think I'll meet up with you folks instead on this one seems like a hoot.
 
For those who are interested, and I acknowledge it's not Elite, but KSP has a memorial on Mun (their moon) for this. People regularly re-enact (or try to) the Apollo 11 landing to land as close as possible to the "Armstrong Memorial".

Just a thought... Shame we can't do that here too.
 
Yeah, I've been really hoping for a landable moon. Three of my ships are named after the Apollo missions and they're just itching to make the descent: Yankee Clipper and Intrepid (Apollo 12's CSM and LM respectively) and Kitty Hawk (Apollo 14's CSM). As a huge Apollo junkie I'm planning on making this journey but haven't officially signed up yet.
I've had a ship called Kitty Hawk in ED for exactly the same reason :)
Al Shepard is my favourite Astronaut.
 
I've had a ship called Kitty Hawk in ED for exactly the same reason :)
Al Shepard is my favourite Astronaut.

Conrad and Bean are probably my favorites (hence two ships named for Apollo 12) but Shepard was the man as well. I just picked up a copy of his book Moon Shot the other day at a used book store but haven't gotten around to it yet. Though I have read the biography about him, Light This Candle, as well as The Right Stuff which he's featured prominently in.
 
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