wechosethemoon.org

wechosethemoon.org won “FWA’S FAVORITE SITE OF THE YEAR” and this is the subject of my blog today. I am particularly interested in this site because my father was one of the rocket scientists who built this rocket and trained the astronauts. At that time he worked for TRW in Redondo Beach, then moved to Cape Canaveral before this launch on July 16, 1969. This day is also significant because my birthday is July 16, and every year he would mention the Apollo 11 on my birthday. It is a thrill to be able to log into this site and watch the simulated space launch.

This re-enaction of the apollo 11 mission is broken into 11 stages which can we accessed through an interactive flight path that shows the path of the rocket with clickable links shown below. I like the way that they have used the flight path as an informational graphic to provide the users with a visual representation of the flight path while simultaneously using this as a navigational tool.


It is fun to be able to click a button ans watch the rocket launch with realistic looking flames. A short while into the flight the ship starts to come apart and the extra weight is dropped off into a burts of flames. I love the camera angles showing

Users are also able to use the mission tracker change the camera angle to watch the space ship from different perspectives throughout the journey.

The attention to detail that went into this site is amazing. This site contains original photography, audio recordings with transcripts, and videos from the space flight, and was even put live on the 40th anniversary of the space mission. I also noticed that there are fun facts like the price of gas at the time of this space mission, as well as interesting cultural facts to give a bigger picture of what was going on at this time in history.

My only complaint is that I was not able to figure out how to download the certificate that the site allows users to customize. This should be more visible.

Even the name chosen for the URL of this site is symbolic of JF Kennedy’s vision to land on the moon with men in the 1960’s. He said “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." When Domain Studios set out to put this flash piece together, they did not take the easy way, but did what was necessary to create a masterpiece.

There are so many reasons that this web site won the FWA's site of the year; it is a tribute to JFK, historical reproduction of one of this country's proudest moments, entertaining, and displays outstanding use of technology.