The Apollo 11 Google Earth Tour

The Google Geo Developers Blog is featuring a Google Earth plugin version of the amazing Apollo 11 tour, created by Sean Askay for the launch of Google Moon on Monday. To view the tour you will need to have installed the Google Earth plugin on your computer (or you could watch the video of it below).



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Driving on the Moon

The Google Moon Buggy

Wow! Google have released a Google Earth plugin game that lets you drive a Lunar Rover on the moon.

The game allows you to drive around the various Apollo moon landing sites. The Apollo 11 site is a good place to start because it also contains a model of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog: Moon in the Google Earth Plugin!

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Space 1999 on Google Moon

Space 1999, Moonbase Alpha
Earlier today the Google Earth Blog reported about Gerardo Paz's amazing 3D model of Moon Base Alpha from the Sci-Fi television series Space 1999. You can view the model and a tour created by Gerardo by viewing this kml in Google Earth.

Søren Johannessen has now created a web page where you can view the tour in the Google Earth plugin. Here's a little screencast:



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Google Moon

Today's big news from Google is that the moon has been added to Google Earth. For news of the launch you should check out the Google Earth Blog. Frank Taylor is at the launch event and I'm sure he will be posting about all the features of this latest addition to Google Earth.

You can also check out the Google Earth Blog's Twitter feed, which Frank is using to comment live on the launch in Washington.

Google Moon Landings

Google Moon has also been added to the Google Earth plugin, which means it is possible to view Google Moon in your browser. I've created a quick example of the Apollo Moon landings sites using the plugin. The example includes YouTube videos of the moon landings.

One of the great features of Google Earth and the Google Earth browser plugin is the ability to add tours. Here is a very brief tour of the Apollo 15 Landing Site. The tour is very short and I haven't added any narration or a soundtrack. However, it does show some of the possibilities of creating tours with the new Google Moon option.


The Google Lat Long Blog have now also posted about the launch: Google LatLong: Fly yourself to the moon

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Google Moon Events

Google is holding a special event in Washington DC tomorrow. The event will launch the "...newest addition to Google Earth". July 20th is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and the list of speakers includes Buzz Aldrin and other members of NASA. This has lead Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog to suggest that Google will almost certainly be unveiling a 3D Moon mode for Google Earth tomorrow.

The event is being held at the Newseum in Washington DC at 11am. Google say that "if you can make it, it would be great to see you there", so it looks like it will be an open event.

Today I found the astronaut pegman images (above) in Google's 'mapfiles' site. I suspect that Google will be using the astronaut pegman in Street View tomorrow. Possibly the astro-pegman will appear around the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. .

Update - Astro-Pegman is now live in all Street View coverage on Google Maps.

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Google Maps on the Moon

Forty Years ago today the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was launched. It seems an appropriate time then to have a quick look at some of the mashups created with Google Moon.

QuoVadis Live!

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the first moon landing QuoVadis Live! have added a 'moon' control to the bottom right of all their Google Maps. The button allows the map user to see the current latitude and longitude on Google Moon.

Clicking on the button changes the Google Maps view to the same latitude and longitude (in the selenographic coordinates system) for the moon.

HeyWhatsThat Moon Phases

The excellent HeyWhatsThat Cosmic Visibility map has an option to view the moon's phases. The map shows the current view (updated every minute) and it is also possible to change the time and date.

Apollo Moon Landings

Here's one of my own maps, created many moons ago. This map shows YouTube videos of Apollo moon landings geo-tagged at the landing sites of each mission.

Moon Songs Request

On the subject of the Apollo 11 mission, I've had a request from Soren Johannessen of Microformats.dk for suggestions of songs that the Apollo crew might have had on their i-Pods (alternative reality permitting).

If you know of any suitable moon / space related songs leave a comment on Soren's blog. If he gets enough suggestions he is going to create a Google Maps mashup featuring the songs.

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