We Choose the Moon

http://www.wechoosethemoon.org/

We Choose the Moon is a flash documentary about the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

You can navigate you way through from launch to landing on an animated computer generated timeline, which is divided into 11 stages.

The site includes photo and video archives and mission audio. There’s an area of the screen which is designed to look like a news feed, it cycles through interesting facts about the mission such as:

“Only twenty-five seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11’s lunar module lands on the Moon.”

“Upon returning to inside of the lunar module, the astronauts smelled “wet ashes in a fireplace and spent gunpowder” it is the smell of moon dust.”

After having designed an interface about the solar system what strikes me is how easily I could have enriched the experience of my own site by linking to this site. It’s interesting to me that if you were to use any of this information in a book rather than a website you would come across all kinds of copyright issues and probably fees to use the photos.

To me this site illustrates how appropriate flash is as a tool for education. The site is packed full of powerful images which communicate the suspense, excitement and elation the world experienced on the day the Eagle landed.