Ranger IX, Camera A
A while back wanderingspace posted 2 great animations of the Mariner flybys of Mars. They had a great nickelodeon feel to them and are two of the best posts on this blog (in our opinion). So when Emily Lackdawalla posted recently on the first “earthrise” as seen from a probe in orbit around the moon – she linked to this great database of moon shot mission images from the 60’s. Glimpsing at these collections, it was clear that there existed the same potential for another nickelodeon style animation of a trip to the moon.
The mission shown above is Ranger IX and there are many more potential animations that can be made from other Ranger missions or from the Lunar Orbiter series of images. Maybe one day.
Sorry for the huge file size… about 1M.
August 28th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
This is terrific; I remember watching the Ranger probe on television at age about six. The only thing missing is that it had the text ‘Live from the moon’ in the corner.
November 1st, 2010 at 4:28 pm
PS I’m just now reading “Lunar Impact: The NASA History of Project Ranger”. Highly recommended.
November 1st, 2010 at 4:43 pm
It’s a FREE read as well.