Slideshow: Moon rocket engines recovered

Click through scenes from Bezos Expeditions' recovery of historic Saturn 5 rocket engines from the Atlantic Ocean floor.

Launch slideshow

Salvagers backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos have recovered components from the Saturn 5 rocket engines that powered NASA's Apollo moon missions off the launch pad, more than four decades after they hurtled down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Amazon.com's founder reported on the successful three-week sea salvage operation on his Bezos Expeditions website. "What an incredible adventure," he wrote.

"We've seen an underwater wonderland — an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program," Bezos said Wednesday.

Almost a year ago, Bezos announced that deep-sea sonar scans had located the first-stage engines that were used for the historic Apollo 11 launch in 1969 — the launch that sent astronauts on their way to the moon's surface for the first time. The first stage of the three-stage Saturn 5 was jettisoned once its fuel was spent, and fell into the Atlantic.

It took months to plan the recovery expedition — and three weeks ago, Bezos and the salvage team headed out into the Atlantic on the Seabed Worker, a ship that has previously played a role in recovering sunken treasures.

"While I spent a reasonable chunk of time in my cabin emailing and working, it didn't keep me from getting to know the team," Bezos wrote. Much of his posting was given over to thank-yous for the team members. 

The chilly ocean waters preserved the hardware in "gorgeous" condition at a depth of more than 14,000 feet, Bezos said. He noted that it was difficult to make out the serial numbers on the hardware. Confirmation of the Apollo 11 connection will have to wait until the parts are more closely examined.

Remotely operated vehicles recovered enough components to fashion displays of two flown F-1 engines. Bezos said the ship was now on its way back to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to offload the artifacts. Bezos Expeditions said the restoration would take place at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

"The upcoming restoration will stabilize the hardware and prevent further corrosion," Bezos said. "We want the hardware to tell its true story, including its 5,000 mile per hour re-entry and subsequent impact with the ocean surface. We’re excited to get this hardware on display where just maybe it will inspire something amazing."

Even before the expedition, Bezos and NASA worked out where the artifacts would be going. The first option would go to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs told NBC News in an email. The second engine would be offered to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, the hometown for Bezos and Amazon.com.

"While we have no role in the restoration, we are providing assistance to help identify the hardware through our various history offices and field centers," Jacobs said.

Although Bezos made his billions in the dot-com world, he's had a longstanding interest in spaceflight as well: His rocket venture, Blue Origin, has been working on a launch system for suborbital as well as orbital passenger flights with NASA's backing. Last year, Bezos donated a 5-ton Blue Origin lander prototype to the Museum of Flight.

In a statement, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden praised the recovery of the engines as a "historic find."

"We look forward to the restoration of these engines by the Bezos team and applaud Jeff’s desire to make these historic artifacts available for public display," Bolden said. "Jeff and his colleagues at Blue Origin are helping to usher in a new commercial era of space exploration, and we are confident that our continued collaboration will soon result in private human access to space, creating jobs and driving America’s leadership in innovation and exploration."

More space history:

• Timeline: NASA's Glory Days
• NASA tests engine from Apollo 11 rocket
• Moon looms again as future destination

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This should be the saddest week of the year for NASA — which is marking the anniversaries of three fatal tragedies, including the 10th anniversary of the shuttle Columbia's catastrophic breakup. But the way NASA Administrator Charles Bolden sees it, this week is not just about mourning 17 dead astronauts.

"I think this is not a memorial. It's a celebration, because of what they made possible," he told NBC News this month during a visit to Seattle. "We're commemorating them, and we're thanking them by continuing to move forward — and not dropping back and dwelling on the pain. They'd be pretty angry, I think, if they saw that."

The week of celebration — and, yes, of commemoration — begins on Sunday with the 46th anniversary of the 1967 Apollo 1 launch-pad fire. The 27th anniversary of the 1986 Challenger explosion follows on Monday. This year, NASA is focusing the most on Friday, the 10th anniversary of the Columbia tragedy, which has been set aside as the agency's "Day of Remembrance" for all of its fallen astronauts.

Ever since the loss of Columbia and its crew of seven, NASA has organized solemn commemorations during the last week of January.

"We honor the memory of all three crews that were lost over the history of human spaceflight," Bolden explained. "We thought it was fitting that it be somewhere around the dates of those three losses. We think about this every day, to be quite honest. But we take these particular times and set them aside, when we can let everyone else around the world join us and help celebrate."

There's that word again.

"I use the term 'celebrate' because we have to remember that, yeah, we lost some valiant people — but what their sacrifice brought is what we should really be thinking about: the fact that they dared to challenge and do things differently," Bolden said. "Because of what they did, we're well on the cusp of going deeper into space than we've ever gone before."

Each tragedy took a terrible toll — and in each case, NASA learned from its mistakes:

Apollo 1's three astronauts were Gus Grissom, one of the Mercury 7 pioneers; Ed White, the first American to do a spacewalk; and rookie spaceflier Roger Chaffee. They died during a pre-launch test at the launch pad when bad wiring sparked a blaze in the pure-oxygen environment inside their sealed capsule. After the fire, engineers overhauled the wiring system, switched over to a less flammable oxygen-nitrogen mix and redesigned the hatch to open outward instead of inward. Years later, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong observed that the accident provided "the gift of time" — a chance to change a lot of things for the better. "We got that added benefit, but we regret the price we had to pay," Armstrong said.

Challenger's crew of seven was led by commander Dick Scobee, but the best-known flier was Christa McAuliffe, who was tapped to be the first teacher in space. The other astronauts were Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ron McNair and Greg Jarvis. Their space shuttle blew up 73 seconds after launch, due to a bad seal on one of the solid rocket boosters. The investigation led to a redesign of the boosters, which worked without fail ever since. It also pointed up the problem of "go fever," which led NASA to give the go-ahead for launch amid dangerously low temperatures. Reforms in management procedures gave astronauts, engineers and contractors more of a role in ensuring launch safety. 

Columbia's crew included Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, as well as commander Rick Husband, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla and William McCool. The shuttle broke up over Texas during its descent at the end of a 16-day science mission. Investigators concluded that flying foam insulation from the external fuel tank damaged the left wing during launch, setting the stage for the Feb. 1 tragedy. The fuel tank was redesigned, emergency rescue plans were updated, and an array of cameras was added to the shuttle to watch for damage. The investigators also pointed to lapses in NASA's "safety culture." The George W. Bush administration followed up on the investigative panel's recommendations and decided to close down the space shuttle program once construction of the International Space Station was complete. That day finally came on July 21, 2011, with the landing of the space shuttle Atlantis.

Bolden said the successful operation of the space station and the rise of a new generation of commercial space vehicles would not have been possible if it weren't for the sacrifices made by the fallen astronauts. Rather than shutting down America's space program, political leaders gave the go-ahead for more ambitious plans to go beyond Earth orbit, and ultimately to Mars.

"If we didn't have that coming along, then what would have been the point of losing them?" Bolden said. 

To recognize those sacrifices, Bolden will attend a space conference being conducted in Ramon's honor this week in Israel, and then will return to Washington in time for Friday's wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. NASA's space centers are planning commemorations as well: Officials at Johnson Space Center will participate in memorial events in Texas on Thursday and Friday. Kennedy Space Center's ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET Friday at the visitor center's Space Mirror Memorial. That Florida observance is open to the public and will be broadcast on NASA TV.

Stay tuned for more about NASA's week of sad celebration in the days ahead — and feel free to add your own reminiscences and tributes as comments below.

More about NASA's space tragedies:

• Apollo 1's tale retold: 'Fire in the cockpit!'
• The chilling saga of the shuttle Challenger
• Columbia remembered, 10 years after launch
• Flash interactive: NASA's Day of Remembrance

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Ronald Evans / NASA file

Earth rises above the moon's Ritz Crater in a view captured on Dec. 14, 1972, by Apollo 17's Ronald Evans.

Forty years ago today, human beings took their last steps on the moon, and had their last look at Earth framed by the lunar horizon. There have been other pictures from the moon since then, of course, but they've all been seen secondhand, based on data sent back by robotic probes. No humans have seen an Earthrise like this one with their own eyes since Apollo 17's crew began their homeward journey on Dec. 14, 1972.

For Andrew Chaikin — author of "A Man on the Moon," the definitive history of the Apollo moon effort — the 40th anniversary of our lunar farewell is a cause for reflection.

When Chaikin was a 16-year-old outer-space fanatic, he attended Apollo 17's night launch at Kennedy Space Center, thanks to a letter he wrote to his congressman asking for a VIP pass. "It was the only part of 'Man on the Moon' that I wrote from personal experience," he told me.

Chaikin said the 12-day mission ended the Apollo program "on the highest note possible."

"By the time of Apollo 17, those guys — not just the astronauts, but the flight controllers and the planners, the whole team — they were really on top of their game," Chaikin said. "It was a spectacular mission scientifically. They landed in an absolutely spectacular place. They took some of the most memorable photographs of all the Apollo missions."

Today, Chaikin posted a video that sums up the significance of Apollo 17 as well as the importance of keeping the moon on our agenda for exploration. The five-minute clip includes an amazing view of the lunar module's ascent module rising into the sky, transmitted from a remote-control video camera that was left on the moon's surface.

Chaikin hopes that astronauts will follow through on the implied promise in the words that Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan spoke just before climbing up from the lunar surface: "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," Cernan said.

Five days later, Cernan and his two crewmates, Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans, rode their command module through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean — marking the end of NASA's last round trip to the moon. Most Americans weren't even alive when that happened. So how many people living today will still be around when the next moonwalk takes place? 

"I don't think we realize how exciting it's going to be when we can see the moon rise, knowing that people are living there, working to make humans a multiplanet species," Chaikin says in the video. "And when they come home, they can share with us one of the moon's most precious gifts: the sight of the earth, breathtakingly beautiful as an oasis of life in the void."

Today's anniversary, recalling our species' grandest voyages, comes amid a shocking episode in Connecticut that highlights our species' violent tendencies. It was that way for the Aurora theater shootings as well, which took place on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Will there ever come a time when the brighter side of our nature, exemplified by the peaceful Apollo program, finally wins out over the dark side? That's one more thing to reflect on over the weekend...

Here are some of your own reflections, selected from the comments you've left over the past week on earlier installments of our Apollo 17 coverage:

Astropreneur:

"December of 2022 isn't that far away. At the rate we are going, and with the uncertainty and lack of focus we are experiencing regarding our manned space exploration program, I'm afraid the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission will pass without any new footprints having been made on the moon's surface by American astronauts.

"How would our lives be today if after 20 or 30 flights the Wright brothers dismantled their airplane and no one else flew for the next 50 years?

"Are we any better off now for not having continued our manned flights to the moon, and perhaps beyond?

"Will we sleep forever? America must awaken or we will find ourselves trailing behind the new leaders who will pick up the torch we long ago dropped.

"Awaken, American spirit of exploration! Arise as you once did so long ago! I miss you."

Elizabeth-1372999:

"That flight stood out, like the first flight to the moon. I can remember some of the highlights: a geologist looking at rocks, giving a reason to go to space beyond the Cold War; the 'blue marble' and a reminder that we are the one habitable planet in the solar system, so we had better keep this planet healthy. The 'Merry Merry Month of December' was funny, but at the time, also a little bit of concern: There was a worry that the breathing apparatus had a problem. What made him sing was the low gravity; he found it fun to skip on the moon because each jump covered a lot of distance, and that was visible on television (something the moonshot deniers should notice).

"I don't think of them as the last astronauts on the moon, but the most recent. It was a shock when my daughter saw videos of Neil Armstrong's moon landing in school, and I realized that another moon landing had not happened in her life. She is much older now, and my grandson has never seen a moon landing, and more and more funding is being cut, even though information from the space program is still coming to us. Look at the information from the asteroid projects and the xenon rocket. The space program is such a small part of our budget as is. It seems that every time budgets are cut, the space program suffers, schools suffer, and children have less and less to feel proud of."

Rick Carter:

 "The next step for mankind is to become a celestial being. Short of that, mankind is destined to become just become one more extinct species in the vast cosmos. It is only by moving out into that vast cosmos that we see a true reflection of ourselves."

FarmerJeani:

"In 1969, I sat in my sister's living room with my grandmother and watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. My grandmother reminisced about her life as we watched. Her father took part in the run for Indian Territory in Oklahoma. She and her siblings stayed with relatives in St. Louis while her parents built a cabin to house them. She liked to stand in the window and watch the lamplighter come around with his horse and buggy to light the gas street lights. She was educated on the farm by an old Cherokee woman who had been to finishing school in Europe, but forced on the long 'trail of tears' march to Indian Territory in 1838-39. She lost all of her family on the way. My great-grandfather eventually sold the farm and bought a store in town. Grandma married a farmer and moved back to Indian Territory, where she raised nine children without the benefit of electricity. All their water was carried from the creek, light was provided by kerosene lanterns and homemade candles. My children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can never fully appreciate the grandeur of the moment as seen through my grandmother's eyes. It was an epic accomplishment and I have no doubt that we will return — to the moon and to many other worlds."

Bbbbmer:

"We truly are a great nation at times — if only we'd remember that."

Troy-2251798:

"My fear is that, in this day and age, America will go to the moon (and/or Mars) and treat it in the usual, selfish, utilitarian way. We have already screwed this planet up. Now they are considering going elsewhere. Of course, once we're there, we'll screw that up too. Here's an 'out-of-this-world' thought: Focus on population control and conservation to limit how badly we're screwing up the one and only world we're ever going to have."

EarlyOut-1524710:

"Planting a radio telescope on the far side of the moon, shielded from the radio noise generated by all of our technology, might well provide the kind of scientific bonanza that Hubble has created.

"That's what's lacking in most the moon mission proposals: the promise of being able to carry out some real science. Most of the proponents of a lunar return offer little more than, 'It would be neat to go back and look around some more.' That's a little vague, given the cost and danger involved."

Pb in CA:

"Somebody explain to me why going to the surface of the moon is valuable. There is nothing there of any value.
OK, I've heard the idea of building a radio receiver on the far side. But, it would be more cost-effective to build a very-long-baseline radio receiver system using a fleet of satellites that stay in low-moon orbit, and half the time are shielded from earth radio noise.

"If we are willing to accept the fact that robots are much better adapted to carrying out missions in space, then we can have a sustainable, affordable space exploration program. The Augustine Commission got it right in this regard. Personally, I have no problem in thinking of robots as extensions of humans, and saying 'we are exploring the surface of Mars' currently with Curiosity.

"Here are the advantages of robots vs. humans on the moon:
- Robots can stay indefinitely - no return trip to Earth
- Energy supply is sun power - no need to take air, food and water
- Very close communication to humans back on Earth - 2.5-second round trip
- Cost of a mission is 1:2000 compared to sending humans

"What is gained by sending humans?"  

Cheezeweggie:

"I can't believe that we are trillions of dollars in debt and the government is seriously considering cutting health care for the elderly — but we can even consider borrowing money to go to the moon. Clean up the mess, then spend money on 'toys.' America can't afford this right now."

Stargazermom123:

"Yes, we're in bad shape here on Earth. In many ways. But we were born to look out and dream ... to explore. We went to the moon ... we have rovers on Mars, [including] one working years after it was supposed to die. Voyager 1 is reaching the end of our solar system, and will soon be beyond it — our first UFO. If we don't go back to the moon ... go to Mars ... [and] go beyond that someday, when we solve our petty differences here on Earth and put our minds to developing the mechanism to go outward into the unknown, what do we have to look forward to? What do young people have to dream about? When I stand outside on a clear night and look out at all the stars, I often wonder if anyone is looking back. Looking back and dreaming of places unknown and things never before seen, just as I am."

More about Apollo 17:

• The moon looms again as future destination
• Apollo 17's Blue Marble leaves its mark on our memory
• Harrison Schmitt remembers Apollo 17 like it was yesterday
• Flashback to 1997: Last moonwalkers look ahead
• Flash timeline: Glory Days on the Final Frontier
• Panoramas.dk: 360-degree view from Apollo 17
• Audio slideshow: Voyage of the Millennium

In addition to marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17's lunar departure, this Earthrise serves as today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from outer space on a daily basis from now until Christmas. Check out these other holiday goodies:

More space calendar entries:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
• Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
• Day 9: Jack Frost nipping at Alaska's nose
• Day 10: Cosmonaut looks down on peaks
• Day 11: Earth looms above moonwalker
• Day 12: Skytree casts shadow on Tokyo
• Day 13: Aurora sets stage for meteor show
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar

Gene Cernan / NASA file

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt faces the American flag on the lunar surface with Earth in the black sky above, during a moonwalk on Dec. 12, 1972.

In the 40 years since NASA's last lunar landing, the moon has had its ups and downs as the target for humanity's next giant leap — but the idea of returning to the moon is on the rise again.

Even though President Barack Obama dissed the moon a couple of years ago as a "been there, done that" destination, there's an enduring appeal to our closest celestial neighbor. Part of the appeal comes from planetary science, part of it comes from the moon's potential as a close-in gateway to the solar system — but a big part of it has to do with the moon's hold on our imagination, which took root before the pyramids were built.

When Apollo 17 touched down on Dec. 11, 1972, marking the final lunar landing of the Apollo program, the moon was the agreed-upon finish line for the Cold War's space race. But now the world has changed, and the case for going to the moon is more complicated.

"I've been referring to the moon as the Rodney Dangerfield of the solar system," said Andrew Chaikin, author of "Man on the Moon," the definitive history of the Apollo space program.

The moon hasn't gotten much respect in the past couple of years: After Obama's comment, the White House effectively canceled NASA's Constellation back-to-the-moon program. Instead, NASA set its sights on a visit to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, and manned trips to Mars in the 2030s. Today, however, there are signs that the idea of going back to the moon isn't that loony after all:

• Two dozen teams are bearing down to try winning the multimillion-dollar Google Lunar X Prize, which goes to the first private venture to send a rover to the moon for a trek to be broadcast on live TV. Two of the teams, Odyssey Moon and SpaceIL, joined forces last month in hopes of taking the grand prize by the end of 2015.
• Last week, the Golden Spike Company proposed sending two-person expeditions to the moon on a commercial basis for $1.4 billion each — which is more than $100 billion less than what NASA was proposing back in 2005.
• China and Russia say they want to put their astronauts on the moon sometime after 2020, with or without NASA. As an initial step toward that giant leap, China is planning to send a robotic lander to the lunar surface next year. India also aspires to send spacefliers to the moon someday.
• NASA has floated the idea of setting up a new space station at a gravitational balance point beyond the far side of the moon, known as Earth-moon L2. The concept is currently stuck in political limbo, however.

Lunar comeback?
A report from the National Research Council faulted NASA last week for lacking a solid strategy for space exploration beyond Earth orbit, and said specifically that NASA's plan to visit an asteroid hasn't gotten enough support from international partners, or the American public, or even within the space agency itself.

John Logsdon, former director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, says Obama's next presidential term could provide the opening for a lunar comeback.

"It's certainly in the air here, that changes in the planning for exploration are coming," he said. "There's enough negative pressure that this asteroid goal isn't working, and enough positive pressure to work with the international community that wants to go back to the moon, that the White House will at some point approve the beginnings of a shift in exploration strategy — in which the moon, or at least the space between the earth and the vicinity of the moon, gets a much higher profile."

One of the early test missions for NASA's next-generation heavy-lift rocket — the Space Launch System, or SLS — would involve sending an unmanned Orion capsule all the way around the moon and back in the 2017 time frame. The first crewed mission, set for 2021, would put up to four astronauts into lunar orbit. "It could just as well be an initial mission to this Earth-moon L2 location," Logsdon said.

In September, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver declared that lunar missions would be part of the agency's grand scheme. "We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars," she said.

Why go?
Chaikin, who has taken on the back-to-the-moon concept as his next crusade, said lunar missions could serve three purposes.

The first aim would be to study the preserved history of the solar system — following up on a scientific story that the Apollo missions were just beginning to uncover.  "I really think the moon deserves to be called a Rosetta stone, because it has unlocked our understanding of how we interpret the clues that we see on other worlds," Chaikin said.

Just as importantly, the moon serves as an "Outward Bound" school for farther space exploration. If a mission goes wrong, NASA could bring the astronauts back in a matter of days — rather than the weeks that an asteroid mission would involve, or the months required for a trip from Mars.

And then there's a phenomenon called the Overview Effect, which could conceivably attract lunar tourists a generation or two from now. "The moon is the only place in the solar system where you can stand on another world and have a consciousness-raising view of Earth," like the view that the Apollo 17 astronauts marveled at 40 years ago, Chaikin explained.

But Chaikin also warns against getting bogged down on the moon. That was the problem with the Constellation program. It called for a permanent settlement to be established on the moon in the 2020s. The cost? You don't want to know. Chaikin said it's better to use the moon "to learn about living off-planet" — to learn how to make use of the moon's water, dirt and rocks, for instance — and then move on to Mars.

The way Chaikin sees it, Apollo 17 was a beautiful ending to one era. Now it's time for the next one.

"Apollo 17 ended the program on a spectacular note," he said. "You can interpret that one of two ways. You can say, wonderful, they found a great way to end it. To some people at NASA, it was just the right time to get out. But on the other hand, here it is, 40 years later, and we're still waiting for someone to pick up where Apollo 17 left off. If we can do that, with the same level of scientific exploration, we'll be in great shape." 

Slideshow: Apollo 17: The last moonshot

NASA

Click through historic photos from humanity's last trip to the moon, the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Launch slideshow

More about the Apollo anniversary:

• Apollo 17's Blue Marble leaves its mark on our memory
• Harrison Schmitt remembers Apollo 17 like it was yesterday
• Flashback to 1997: Last moonwalkers look ahead
• Flash timeline: Glory Days on the Final Frontier
• Panoramas.dk: 360-degree view from Apollo 17
• Audio slideshow: Voyage of the Millennium

In addition to marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17's lunar landing, the picture of astronaut Harrison Schmitt with the American flag beside him and a tiny Earth above him serves as today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from outer space on a daily basis from now until Christmas. Check out these other holiday goodies:

More space calendar entries:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
• Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
• Day 9: Jack Frost nipping at Alaska's nose
• Day 10: Cosmonaut looks down on peaks
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar

NASA / AFP

This image from Dec. 7, 1972, shows a view of Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew - Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt - as they traveled toward the moon. The view extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to Antarctica. This was the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap.

It's been exactly 40 years since NASA sent astronauts to the moon for the last time, and even though more than half of all Americans weren't alive when Apollo 17 got off the ground, the mission still has a big impact on our collective memory. And perhaps the biggest impact comes in the form of a single photograph, the original Blue Marble picture of Earth's full disk.

Hours after their launch on Dec. 7, 1972, Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan and his crewmates — Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans — oohed and ahhed over their home planet, suspended in the blackness outside their window. "I know we're not the first to discover this, but we'd like to confirm ... that the world is round," Cernan told Mission Control.

Astronauts had been seeing the full planet from beyond Earth orbit since 1968, when Apollo 8 made a looping trip around the moon and back. In fact, Apollo 8's "Earthrise" picture of our planet at the moon's horizon also ranks among the most memorable space pictures ever taken. But there was something extraordinary about the view during Apollo 17's trip: The planet's entire disk was sunlit — a sight that astronauts had never captured on film before. The trajectory provided the best look yet at Antarctica, and Schmitt marveled over the clear view of Africa.

"If there ever was a fragile-appearing piece of blue in space, it's the Earth right now," Schmitt said.

When the original picture was released, it made front pages around the world — and it inspired a continuing series of Blue Marble images, including a version that's been commonly used on iPhone displays. Just this week, NASA released a set of "Black Marble" nighttime satellite pictures to add to the Marble repertoire.

Slideshow: Apollo 17: The last moonshot

NASA

Click through historic photos from humanity's last trip to the moon, the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Launch slideshow

The Blue Marble wasn't Apollo 17's only cultural legacy. Here are a few other memes that came out of the 12-day mission:

• Doing science in space: Apollo 17 was the first NASA mission to include a professional scientist: Harrison Schmitt, who had a Ph.D. in geology. John Logsdon, former director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, recalls that Apollo 16 and 17 were almost canceled during the Nixon administration due to budgetary concerns. "It was the outcry from the science community ... and the fact that Nixon really didn't want to cancel them, that saved those missions," Logsdon said. Apollo 17 was arguably the most scientifically oriented mission to the moon — and helped set the precedent for research on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.
• The beauty of a night launch: The post-midnight launch marked the first time that a NASA manned spacecraft took off at night, and the brilliant blaze of the Saturn 5 rising into the darkness became another iconic picture. It would be more than a decade before the next night launch from Florida: the shuttle Challenger's liftoff on STS-8 in 1983.
• Orange soil: One of the most remarkable scientific discoveries came when Schmitt spotted orange-colored soil during the second of the mission's three moonwalks in the Taurus-Littrow valley. "It's all over! Orange!" he said. He and Cernan made sure that the stuff was included in the mission's 243 pounds (110 kilograms) of lunar rock and dirt — the largest haul of samples ever brought back from the moon. Researchers determined that the orange soil consisted of glass beads formed from lava ejected during volcanic eruptions on the moon, about 3.7 billion years ago. Such findings have helped scientists understand the violent processes that were at work on the moon early in its existence.
• Singin' on the moon: The astronauts had serious work to do during their three days on the lunar surface, but there were moments of levity as well. The best-known moment came when Cernan and Schmitt crooned a tune as they skipped on the moon. "I was strolling on the moon one day, in the very merry month of December," they sang.
• Last man on the moon: When Cernan prepared to climb up the ladder from the moon's surface into the Challenger lunar module for the last time, he told Mission Control that he believed the next steps on the moon would be made "not too long into the future." Logsdon said it was well-known at the time that the next moon mission wouldn't happen for a decade or more. "But I don't think any of us thought it would be 40 years, or really more than a half-century," Logsdon said.

NBC News' Cape Canaveral correspondent, Jay Barbree, told me that Cernan isn't fond of his "last man on the moon" title. "He likes to be called 'the most recent astronaut on the moon,'" Barbree said. "That's his way of saying we're going back."

This week, Bloomberg.com's James Clash quoted Cernan as saying that he "honestly believed it wasn't the end, but the beginning." At the time, he told himself, "We're not only going back, but by the end of the century, humans will be well on their way to Mars."

Cernan also told Clash that he regretted missing out on what would have been another picture for the ages:

"I left my Hasselblad camera there with the lens pointing up at the zenith, the idea being someday someone would come back and find out how much deterioration solar cosmic radiation had on the glass.

"So, going up the ladder, I never took a photo of my last footstep. How dumb! Wouldn’t it have been better to take the camera with me, get the shot, take the film pack off and then (for weight restrictions) throw the camera away?"

How long will it be before someone comes across Cernan's camera and does the damage assessment? If you remember the Apollo moon missions, what did they mean to you back then, and what do they mean to you today? If you don't remember Apollo, do those missions still tug at your psyche, or does this all seem like ancient history? Feel free to leave your remarks or reminiscences as comments below, or send them as emails to cosmiclog@msnbc.com. I'll compile the best of the bunch for a follow-up item next week. We'll also have a look at how the moon may (or may not) figure in future space exploration.

Update for 6 p.m. ET: So who took the Blue Marble picture? That's been the subject of debate for decades, and no one at NASA has ever come up with a definitive answer. "I've actually been to events where all three of them kind of jokingly take credit for it," NASA's Mike Gentry told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in 1999. The question has apparently been a sore point for Schmitt and Cernan in recent years, but when Barbree asked Cernan about the matter, the mission commander took the standard diplomatic line. Here's what Barbree says Cernan told him about who had the camera: "We were passing it around, and passing it around, and we really don't know who shot it. One of us did."

More about moonshots:

• Harrison Schmitt remembers Apollo 17 like it was yesterday
• Flashback to 1997: Last moonwalkers look ahead
• Flash timeline: Glory Days on the Final Frontier
• Panoramas.dk: 360-degree view from Apollo 17
• Audio slideshow: Voyage of the Millennium
• Apollo 18 in fiction and fact

In addition to marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17's launch, the original Blue Marble serves as today's offering for the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from outer space on a daily basis from now until Christmas. Check out these other holiday goodies:

More space calendar entries:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• The Atlantic: Hubble Advent Calendar
• Zooniverse Advent Calendar

The first human to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, is "doing great" after undergoing cardiac bypass surgery, his wife reported.

Carol Armstrong's characterization of her husband's condition was relayed by another moonwalker, Apollo 17's Gene Cernan.

Neil Armstrong, who lives in the Cincinnati area and just celebrated his 82nd birthday, went to the hospital on Monday for a stress test. He flunked, and on Tuesday, surgeons bypassed four blockages in his coronary arteries. His wife reports that his spirits are high, and the doctors expect no problems with his recovery, Cernan told NBC News' Jay Barbree.

Armstrong became world-famous in 1969 when he and fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. As the mission commander, it was Armstrong's role to step out of the lander first, descend a ladder and take the first-ever footstep on the lunar surface. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," he declared.

After Apollo 11, Armstrong worked briefly at the Pentagon's Office of Advanced Research and Technology, then became an engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati in his native state of Ohio. He also served as a director on the boards of several companies, and retired as chairman of the board of EDO Corp. in 2002.

Armstrong traditionally has taken a low profile in public life: His most recent turns in the spotlight came when he testified at congressional hearings on the future of NASA human spaceflight, and when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal last November.

In a statement, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the space agency "wishes Neil Armstrong the very best for a quick recovery from surgery."

"Neil's pioneering spirit will surely serve him well in this challenging time, and the entire NASA family is holding the Armstrong family in our thoughts and prayers. I know countless well-wishers around the world join us in sending get-well wishes to this true American hero," Bolden said.

Feel free to leave your get-well wishes below, and we'll pass along the general sentiment to Armstrong and his family.

Update for 5:40 p.m. ET: Armstrong's crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, is among the well-wishers: "Just heard about Neil & heart surgery today — Sending my best wishes for a speedy recovery — We agreed to make it [to] the 50th Apollo anniv[ersary] in 2019," Aldrin writes in a Twitter update.

More about Neil Armstrong:

• Neil Armstrong still chooses to go to the moon
• First moonwalker urges suborbital spaceflight
• Corvette with Armstrong angle goes up for sale

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NASA / GSFC / ASU

An enhanced close-up of the Apollo 11 landing site from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the descent stage as a bright spot, with smaller bright spots representing the experimental packages left on the moon. The enhancement brings out the tracks that the astronauts made during their moonwalks.

Forty-three years ago today, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the moon for just 21 hours and 36 minutes, but thanks to a new NASA website, you can see how the lighting at their landing site changes over the course of the two-week-long lunar day.

This week, the team behind the camera on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter unveiled an online viewer that combines imagery at different sun angles for each of the Apollo landing sites, from sunrise to sunset. Such images have been released regularly for the past three years, but it's way cooler to see them presented with a slider that lets you see the shadows shorten and lengthen as the day wears on. You can also click buttons to add labels for the artifacts left at each site, to trace the paths of the astronauts' moonwalks, or just to get your bearings.

A murky view of the Apollo 11 site, captured by LRO just before lunar sunset, served as this week's "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. I thought it was interesting to see the last rays of the day reflected off the very top of the Eagle lunar module's descent stage, producing a bright spot at the very center of the image. You can also see how the lunar module's shadow hitting the rim of the crater to the east of the landing site.

NASA / GSFC / ASU

This view of the Apollo 11 landing site was captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter just before sunset on the moon.

It didn't take long for Facebook followers to recognize what this mostly black picture showed. The first ones to register the right guesses — Mike Hardin, Brian McGraw, Wyatt Bates and James Aker — are eligible to receive celebratory pairs of 3-D glasses, courtesy of Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope team and yours truly. You can use your red-blue glasses to see 3-D views of the Apollo 11 site and lots of other space scenes.

The 43rd anniversary of any event is not usually that big of a deal, but today's "Dark Knight" shootings in Colorado left a lot of people looking for something positive to balance out all of the day's negativity. Apollo 11 provided that positivity, in 1969 and in 2012. I particularly liked the Twitter update from John Ryan: "News out of Colorado is grim, but today's also the anniversary of the first moon landing. Take heart, humanity can do amazing things, too."

No one knew that better than the late astronomer Carl Sagan. In Sagan's reflections on the Apollo missions, which endure in his book "Pale Blue Dot" as well as the Sagan Series of videos produced by Reid Gower, the sage marveled at the rare opportunity afforded by the Cold War space effort: "Once upon a time, we soared into the solar system. For a few years. Then we hurried back. Why? What happened? What was 'Apollo' really about?"

I can't watch the video without tears coming to my eyes. But at least they're not tears of grief.

More reflections on Apollo 11:

• Transterrestrial Musings: Evoloterra
• Bad Astronomy: What Apollo means to me
• Neil Armstrong still chooses to go to the moon
• Universe Today: The journeys of Apollo, on video

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NASA file

The five giant F-1 engines on Apollo 11's Saturn 5 rocket loom large during preparations for the 1969 launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos says his team has located the engines, which fell into the sea just minutes after liftoff.

Amazon.com's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, says he's funded a successful effort to locate the mammoth rocket engines that sent the Apollo 11 mission on the first leg of its mission to the moon — and now he's planning to bring them up from the Atlantic Ocean floor.

It's shaping up as the latest high-rolling undersea adventure, alongside film director James Cameron's dive to the deepest spot in the Pacific, British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Oceanic expedition and the Deepsearch submersible project backed by Google's Eric Schmidt.

Bezos' effort plays off his longtime fascination with outer space — a passion that is also driving his decade-old Blue Origin rocket venture. Like Blue Origin, the undersea recovery project is being funded from the dot-com billionaire's personal fortune.

Destined for museums
The five F-1 rocket engines were on the first stage of Apollo 11's Saturn 5 rocket, which dropped into the Atlantic just minutes after liftoff in 1969. In an online statement, Bezos acknowledges that the undersea artifacts, like other hardware associated with the space effort, still belongs to NASA — and he imagines that one of the engines would go on display at the Smithsonian. But in today's announcement, he says he's asked NASA to consider having another engine sent to the Museum of Flight — which happens to be in Seattle, Amazon.com's hometown.

Rocketdyne built more of the 18-foot-tall F-1 engines than were needed for the Apollo missions, and some of those surplus engines have been placed on display, either attached to Saturn stages or as standalone exhibits. One can be seen at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, for example, and there's another at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

The idea of recovering Apollo 11's engines has been debated for more than 10 years, ever since Project Mercury's Liberty Bell 7 space capsule was raised from the Atlantic seafloor in 1999, said Robert Pearlman, editor of the CollectSpace website and an expert on space history and collectibles. NASA and the U.S. Navy had a good idea where the Saturn 5's first stage splashed down, which probably served as a clue for Bezos' search, he said.

In his statement, Bezos said the engines were located using "state-of-the-art deep-sea sonar," but it's not yet fully clear whether the sonar operation was done using deep-diving underwater robots — as was the case with the recent Titanic mapping project — or strictly with surface equipment. A spokesman for Amazon.com told me that no further details about the project would be shared today.

Pearlman was particularly intrigued to learn that Bezos was already in discussions with NASA about the potential disposition of the rocket engines. "If I were a betting fellow, I would say that Bezos is closer to mounting an expedition than the statement seems to imply," he said. "Which is really cool." 

Lessons from Liberty Bell
Curt Newport, the underwater salvage expert who orchestrated the raising of Liberty Bell 7, said bringing up the engines would pose significant challenges. He assumes that the engines are among other pieces of debris from the Saturn 5's first stage that are spread across the sea floor. "The information I found suggested that [the stage] broke up due to aerodynamic forces before it hit the water," he told me.

Verifying that the engines are from Apollo 11 rather than a different Apollo mission would require checking parts numbers against NASA's database, he said. And bringing up the engines would not be a trivial task.

"If they're intact, they're like nine tons each," Newport told me. "That is not going to be easy to bring to the surface."

Bezos said in his statement that the condition of the engines was not yet known.

Here's the full statement from Bezos, via his Bezos Expeditions website.

"The F-1 rocket engine is still a modern wonder — one and a half million pounds of thrust, 32 million horsepower, and burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second. On July 16, 1969, the world watched as five particular F-1 engines fired in concert, beginning the historic Apollo 11 mission. Those five F-1s burned for just a few minutes, and then plunged back to Earth into the Atlantic Ocean, just as NASA planned. A few days later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.

"Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was 5 years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration. A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind's mission to the moon?

"I'm excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor. We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in — they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see.

"Though they've been on the ocean floor for a long time, the engines remain the property of NASA. If we are able to recover one of these F-1 engines that started mankind on its first journey to another heavenly body, I imagine that NASA would decide to make it available to the Smithsonian for all to see. If we're able to raise more than one engine, I've asked NASA if they would consider making it available to the excellent Museum of Flight here in Seattle. (For clarity, I'll point out that no public funding will be used to attempt to raise the engines, as it's being undertaken privately.)

"NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire 5-year-olds. It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.

"We'll keep you posted."

Update for 2:15 p.m. ET March 29: In comments distributed to journalists on Wednesday, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs had some nice things to say about Bezos' project but noted that the space agency has not yet been involved in formal talks about recovery of the engines.

"We read Mr. Bezos's blog post with the same excitement as I am sure others have today," CollectSpace's Robert Pearlman quoted Jacobs as saying. "We have not had any formal contact with Mr. Bezos about the Apollo engines but we look forward to hearing more from his team and the recovery expedition."

Jacobs said "the rules regarding NASA property in the ocean are the same as those that govern sunken ships and other government property, including our hardware on the moon and other celestial bodies. ... As Mr. Bezos points out in his blog, the federal government retains ownership until the property is properly disposed."

"However, we do not see that as any impediment to the recovery efforts of the Apollo engines," Jacobs wrote. 

He drew a parallel to the Liberty Bell 7 case: "Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic in 1999 through a private venture. Ownership of the spacecraft was eventually turned over to the Kansas Cosmosphere, where it remains on public display." (I originally wrote that Liberty Bell 7 was raised in 1997, but I was two years off.)

Jacobs sees Bezos' venture as a positive step for space history: "There has always been great interest in artifacts from the early days of space exploration and his announcement only adds to the enthusiasm of those interested in NASA's history," The Associated Press' Alicia Chang quoted him as saying.

Update for 10:30 p.m. ET April 1: In a statement released on Friday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden indicated that he's totally on board with Bezos' plan:

"I would like to thank Jeff Bezos for his communication with NASA informing us of his historic find. I salute him and his entire team on this bold venture and wish them all the luck in the world.

"NASA does retain ownership of any artifacts recovered and would likely offer one of the Saturn V F-1 engines to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington under longstanding arrangements with the institution as the holder of the national collection of aerospace artifacts.

"If the Smithsonian declines or if a second engine is recovered, we will work to ensure an engine or other artifacts are available for display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, as Jeff requested in his correspondence with my office. I have directed our staff to begin work to exercise all appropriate authorities to provide a smooth and expeditious disposition of any flight hardware recovered.

"I sincerely hope all continues to go well for Jeff and Blue Origin, and that his team enjoys success and prosperity in every endeavor. All of us at NASA have our fingers crossed for success in his upcoming expedition of exploration and discovery."

More about space history:

• Restored Apollo test capsule ready for next mission
• Bill would defend astronauts' right to sell artifacts
• New frontiers for shuttle souvenirs
• Flash timeline: Glory Days on the Final Frontier

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Eugene A. Cernan / NASA and Space Frontiers via Getty Images

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt stands next to the U.S. flag on the lunar surface during a moonwalk at the Taurus-Littrow landing site in December 1972. Earth is visible in the far distance.

NASA's Apollo moonshots still have a powerful hold on the imagination, but is all that nostalgia actually holding us back on the final frontier?

Rand Simberg, a self-confessed "recovering aerospace engineer" who's now making his mark as an analyst and commentator on space policy, suspects that's the case. Simberg and I discussed the problems with the past and the challenges facing America's future space effort on "Virtually Speaking Science," a talk show you can listen to over the Web.

The power of the Apollo paradigm has been in full view over the past week — at movie theaters, where the horror flick "Apollo 18" pulled in $10.7 million over the Labor Day weekend; and on the Web, where the release of new pictures showing the Apollo landing sites created a sensation.

How long will it be before the next politician calls for an energy "Apollo project," as Barack Obama and  Mitt Romney did during the 2008 presidential campaign? (John McCain, ever the maverick, called his proposed Apollo project the "Lexington Project.")

Even NASA has been taking pages from the Apollo playbook, at one time calling its plan to return to the moon "Apollo on steroids." But Simberg argues that Apollo's big-government approach provides exactly the wrong lessons for future space exploration. The way he sees it, spaceflight in the post-shuttle era has to become much less dependent on government funding.

CEI

Rand Simberg is an adjunct scholar at the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"That's going to start happening a lot more in the future, particularly now that we've moved out into this era where the government can't afford to do it anymore," he said during a recent interview for the MoonandBack website. "If the people who want to do things in space don't fund it, it's not going to happen, and that's a reality people need to accept. They're not going to do it with the taxpayer's money anymore, probably. Apollo's over."

Today, on the Competitive Enterprise Institute's OpenMarket weblog, Simberg referred to the brouhaha over whether NASA might abandon the International Space Station due to a Russian Soyuz glitch — and complained that the space agency's aversion to risk is a "symptom of our continuing to pretend that we understand why we are sending people into space at all with federal money."

"Until we have a grown-up national discussion about that, shed of nostalgia for Apollo and 'national greatness,' not to mention the white-collar welfare aspects and myths about technology spin-off, the vast majority of taxpayer funds spent on this endeavor will be wasted," he wrote.

It's not that Simberg, an adjunct scholar at CEI, is an Apollo-hater. Far from it: He's one of the folks behind the creation of "Evoloterra," a secular liturgy aimed at commemorating "the wondrous accomplishments achieved by the human beings of planet Earth" each year on July 20, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Simberg still believes the Apollo moon landings were "a historic achievement" from a technological and even spiritual perspective. It's just not the way to run a sustainable space program.

"I tend to think of Apollo as not having much to do with space in terms of opening it up" as a frontier, he told me.

Is the space frontier even worth opening up? Simberg said policymakers see the space program as more of a jobs program. "The reason space policy is a mess is because it's really not 'important' ... to the people who make the decisions about it," he said.

Although Simberg shies away from being pigeonholed as a Republican or a conservative, he's in favor of free-market, small-government solutions. That means he often finds himself in the camp opposing Obama — except when it comes to space policy. He's strongly in favor of the Obama administration's push to commercialize spaceflight to low Earth orbit. His weblog, Transterrestrial Musings, keeps close track of the ups and downs of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other players in the commercial space race.

In Simberg's view, the worst thing about Obama's space policy is that Obama is behind it. "It's just very unfortunate that it's this administration that managed to come up with this one enlightened policy," Simberg said. "The biggest political challenge is trying to make sure that if/when the Republicans take over ... they don't have a kneejerk reaction to everything that came out of the White House."

Simberg is working on that challenge, through his writings for the Washington Examiner, Pajamas Media, The New Atlantis, Popular Mechanics and other outlets. Sometimes it's an uphill battle.

"People ought to think space is important, but the problem is that we've never had an intelligent discussion of why we send people into space," he told me.

Did we see that discussion during tonight's debate for GOP presidential hopefuls? Not really: They had other issues on their mind. But Rand and I had that discussion tonight on "Virtually Speaking Science."

Previous podcasts from 'Virtually Speaking Science':

• Marty Hoffert on the clean energy revolution
• George Djorgovski on doing virtual astronomy
• Alan Stern on suborbital science and NASA's mission to Pluto
• Col. 'Coyote' Smith on space solar power
• Tim Pickens on private-sector moon missions

This post was updated at 11 p.m. ET to include the archived podcast of tonight's installment of "Virtually Speaking Science."

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

NASA today released the sharpest views of three Apollo moon landing sites ever sent back by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"We all like to obsess and look at the Apollo landing site images because it's fun," said Arizona State University's Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. "People actually used to be able to go to the moon. People used to explore the moon. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, that will continue again. But LROC is looking at the whole moon."

LRO's high-resolution camera has been looking at the whole moon, including all six of the Apollo landing sites, for the past two years. But these particular images are special because they were taken from the closest vantage point the orbiter will ever have during its $504 million mission. Because of adjustments in the car-sized probe's orbit, lately it's been flying as low as 14 miles (22 kilometers) above the lunar surface.

That means the resolution for these three landing sites — Apollo 12 in 1969, Apollo 14 in 1971 and Apollo 17 in 1972 — is twice as sharp as that seen in the previous images. Each pixel covers just 10 inches (25 centimeters), as opposed to 20 inches per pixel previously. "When I first took a look at these images, my jaw flopped to the ground," Noah Petro, a member of the LRO research team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said in a video featuring the new imagery.

NASA / GSFC / ASU

This image from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the tracks and the trash left behind by the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

The picture of the Apollo 17 site in the moon's Taurus-Littrow valley is sharp enough to show the tracks of the astronauts and their lunar rover in unprecedented detail. You can make out the lunar module's descent stage (dubbed "Challenger"), as well as the module's experimental pallet, the ladder leading down to the lunar surface (it's a bright prominence at the 9 o'clock point on the inset enlargement of Challenger) and the life-support backpacks that Gene Cernan and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt threw out of the ascent module just before they took off (labeled as PLSS ... portable life support system ... in the picture above).

Robinson said the new imagery initially raised questions about the debris that was scattered around the descent stage. "There seemed to be too much 'stuff' on the ground," he told reporters. Later, the scientists figured out that the excess "stuff" was actually packing material for the instruments, as well as insulation that was blown off the descent stage during the Apollo 17 astronauts' takeoff.

Off to the right of the frame, Apollo 17's lunar rover (labeled as LRV) shows up in such detail that "if you squint really hard, you can begin to resolve the seats and the fact that the wheels were left turned slightly to the left," Robinson said.

Robinson said he had to check with Schmitt to confirm some of the features he thought he saw in the latest imagery. Schmitt was suitably impressed. "Jack's comment was, 'We need to image the whole valley at this resolution.' I agree with him," Robinson reported. Check out this video for a guided tour of the Apollo 17 site based on the new views.

Apollo 14 and Apollo 12
The pictures show traces of the experiments left behind by the moon missions — giving the lie to claims that humans never traveled to the moon. The experimental retroreflectors left behind several Apollo missions are still used to calibrate laser-ranging devices on Earth and even LRO's instruments in lunar orbit.

Apollo 14's experimental package, known as ALSEP, is visible as a bright spot on the new LRO image below. You can also see a detailed image of the Antares lunar module's descent stage near the Fra Mauro crater, and the tracks left by the astronauts and their rickshaw-style cart as they moved around the surface:

NASA via AFP - Getty Images

This picture from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows tracks left behind by Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell as they roved around the lunar surface.

Unfortunately, not even the latest imagery is sharp enough to show the golf balls that Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard said he sent flying for "miles and miles and miles" on the moon in 1971. "Those are too small to be resolved," Robinson said. 

The Apollo 12 picture shows the tracks left by Pete Conrad and Alan Bean after NASA's second moon landing in 1969. Scientists say the two bright streaks forming an "L" shape around the ALSEP experimental station are reflective cables leading to two of the scientific instruments left behind. The astronauts also paid visits to small craters surrounding the landing site, as well as the place where the unmanned Surveyor 3 probe landed two years earlier:

NASA / GSFC / ASU

This LRO image shows the areas visited by Apollo 12 astronauts in 1969.

What lies ahead?
What about the other Apollo landing sites? "It wasn't possible to image easily all six sites," said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. For example, the lighting conditions during the times when the probe flew over the Apollo 11 landing site weren't optimal for producing higher-resolution pictures, he said.

Robinson said the Apollo pictures made up just a small fraction of the 1,500 narrow-angle images taken during the orbiter's super-close-up series of orbits. Now the spacecraft is now in the process of moving into a wider orbit for the mission's next phase of scientific observations. "These are the sharpest images that we plan for this mission," Vondrak said.

Vondrak said the amount of data returned by the LRO mission so far amounts to 245 terabytes, which is equivalent to the amount of data contained in a stack of 52,000 DVDs. "If you took this stack and put it on the ground floor of the Capitol Building in Washington, it would reach to the top of the Capitol Dome," he said.

LRO could keep going for several more years, and we'll continue to see lower-resolution pictures of the Apollo landing sites as the mission proceeds. Beyond the fun factor, the LRO team uses the Apollo pictures to study how the sites look under different lighting conditions, as well as reference points for determining precise locations in other lunar imagery, Robinson said.

The pictures also will come in handy for planning future missions to the moon, said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The next lunar mission, known as Grail, is due for launch this week.

LRO "really provides a rich opportunity to map the moon and allow us to contemplate additional sites where samples of a special nature could be determined, and then future missions could potentially be planned," Green said.

"Relative to exploration," Green continued, "indeed, LRO has been used extensively to be able to provide the exploration people [with] the kind of altimeter and high-resolution maps for them to be able to plan potential future sites that humans may want to go to on the moon, as plans emerge."

When do you think humans will follow robotic spacecraft to the moon? Or will the robots do such a good job that we won't need to send humans? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 5:10 p.m. ET: Will the tracks and the trash from the Apollo missions be visible forever?

"Forever is a long time," Robinson said, "so the answer is no, they won't be there forever."

Robinson noted that the moon is constantly being bombarded by cosmic debris, ranging from bits of grit to giant asteroids.

"Slowly, over time, first, the tracks will disappear," he said. "They'll be all ground into, mixed into the soil. Then the smaller pieces of equipment will disappear. Eventually, the descent stages will get probably blasted with a larger asteroid. From Apollo rocks and other analyses that were done, we know that a rock erodes at something like the rate of 1 millimeter per million years. It's very slow. So in human terms it may seem like forever. But in geologic terms probably there will be no traces of Apollo exploration, oh, let's say in 10 [million] to 100 million years."

More about moon missions:

• NASA set to launch twin moon probes
• Apollo 18 in fiction and fact
• No hoax: Moon landing was NASA's finest hour
• 'Moon Next' considered as exploration option

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Ian A. Duncan

A lunar module on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, N.Y., could have been used for an Apollo 18 mission if it hadn't been canceled. (Learn more from the museum website and Flyian.net.)

The secret moon mission depicted in the movie "Apollo 18" is a totally bogus Hollywood invention — but if NASA ever wanted to redo the Apollo program, the Cradle of Aviation Museum has just the thing: the lunar lander that would have flown during Apollo 18.

"We like to say that it's fully loaded to go to the moon if they want to use it," quipped Andrew Parton, executive director of the Long Island museum.

The lunar module, designated LM-13, is just a small part of the hardware that was left behind when the Apollo moon program was canceled earlier than originally scheduled due to budgetary constraints. The last manned moon mission, Apollo 17, went to the Taurus-Littrow valley in December 1972. The Hollywood version of Apollo 18 was supposedly flown to investigate a spooky, "Blair Witchy" mystery on the moon — but the actual Apollo 18, 19 and 20 moonshots were aimed at widening lunar exploration and  scoping out sites for future moon bases. (This report goes into what would have happened if the Apollo program were extended.) 

After the first moon landing in 1969, Washington began pulling back on NASA's Apollo ambitions, having concluded that the space race was won. By the end of 1970, Apollo 18 was scrapped — and so was millions of dollars worth of Apollo hardware, including the Cradle of Aviation Museum's lunar lander.

Some of the leftover Apollo spaceships and Saturn V rocket stages were converted for use on the Skylab space station project in 1973 and the historic Apollo-Soyuz linkup in 1975. Other pieces were parceled out to museums, including NASA's Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center, as well as the Smithsonian in Washington, the Franklin Institute in Philadelpha and the Cradle of Aviation Museum. For an exhaustive list of what happened to NASA's hardware, check out "A Field Guide to American Spacecraft."

The LM-13 lander was an unfinished shell when it came to the Long Island museum, Parton said. "We had our volunteer restoration crew, many of whom worked on the program at Grumman, work on it," he told me.

The lunar module has already had a turn in the Hollywood spotlight, as a prop for the 1998 HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon." Today it's set up as an exhibit with a mannequin in a spacesuit, making as if it's about to step on the lunar surface for Apollo 18. Parton says "a fair amount of folks from NASA" come up to see the display, and he's expecting traffic to increase after the movie makes its debut.

"They'll see the movie, and then probably come out to see the exhibit," he said.

From scrap yard to backyard
In addition to the big pieces, lots of little pieces from the tail end of the Apollo program were sold off as surplus in the 1970s. Some of them weren't so little: Dale W. Cox Jr., a retired naval officer and a semifinalist for NASA's Mercury space program, happened to be driving by a scrap yard in California in 1970 when he noticed an array of titanium tanks and pipes sitting out for display.

"I learned that Apollo 18 had been canceled, and that all the titanium work in progress was being scrapped," Cox, now 90, told me today. "And there it was, so I just bought the whole thing for 10 cents a pound."

Cox's wife, Patricia, is an artist — and it wasn't long before she and another artist, Jae Carmichael, embellished the shimmery hardware with artistic touches and put the assemblages on display. "It would have been pretty dull if she hadn't put all the pieces together," Dale Cox said. "She transformed them into space junk as an art form."

Cox tried putting one of the tanks, measuring 15 feet high and weighing about 95 pounds, up for sale on eBay with an asking price of $104,000. "I got one bid at $7,500, which I rejected," he said. That offer still would have made Cox a healthy profit, assuming he paid $9.50 for the metal in 1970. But instead, he shipped the tank and other space hardware up to his son in the Seattle area, Dale Cox III.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

Half of a titanium tank that was once destined to go inside a lunar module now sits beside a 600-year-old yew tree in the front yard of Dale Cox III's house in the Seattle area. See more titanium artwork.

The younger Cox showed me around the displays in his backyard this week. Two lunar module fuel tanks look as if they're ready to load up, while another tank is still in pieces. When Cox banged on the 15-footer, which may have been built for the Saturn V rocket, it bonged like a Tibetan bell.

"Titanium never changes color, and it doesn't corrode," Dale Cox III told me. "It's been outside since my dad bought it, and it's basically never changed."

Murky mysteries in history
Were all those tanks destined for Apollo 18? The Coxes like to think so, but there's really no way to say definitively where particular components might have gone if the moon program were extended. "The most reliable way to say it would be to say that the hardware was for a canceled mission, but that final assignments weren't made," said Robert Pearlman, editor of the CollectSpace website for space history and collectibles.

He noted that lots of space hardware was being shifted around during the 1970s, for a variety of missions that may or may not have happened. The first stage of a Saturn V rocket that was at one time destined for Apollo 18 serves as a typical case: Testing on the rocket stage was completed in 1971. Then it was put in storage. Then it was pulled out of storage as a backup for the Skylab first stage. Then it was put back in storage. Then, in 1977, it was moved to Johnson Space Center to become an inert part of its rocket display.

"Its assignment was for Apollo 18, but its testing was completed after 18 was already canceled," Pearlman observed. "So by the time it was ready for a mission, there was no moon mission to fly."

Even before it was canceled, the plans for Apollo 18 were similarly murky. Most accounts say it was destined to explore the moon's Copernicus Crater, but Tycho Crater and the lunar farside were also mentioned as potential (and potentially riskier) destinations. Pearlman owns a 1970 globe of the moon that shows Apollo 18 going to Tycho, near the landing site of the Surveyor 7 probe.

By most accounts, Apollo 12 command module pilot Dick Gordon would have been the commander of Apollo 18, with Vance Brand and Harrison Schmitt serving as crewmates. But in the waning days of the moon program, Schmitt's assignment was switched to Apollo 17, which made him the only professional scientist to set foot on the moon. Joe Engle, who was bumped from Apollo 17, might have flown on Apollo 18 — but who knows?

"The Apollo 18 crew, whoever they were supposed to be, never got far enough to name a spacecraft or design a mission patch," Pearlman said. Sure, you might see some Apollo 18 patches floating around, but Pearlman said "those patches are complete fabrications, they're alternate histories that have no relation to actual fact."

Gordon retired from NASA in 1972, even before Apollo was finished. Brand, meanwhile, became the command module pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz mission (which is sometimes referred to as Apollo 18) and went on to fly three space shuttle missions. Engle helped test the space shuttle and flew on two orbital missions.

Future fiction and fact
Aside from the fact that there are scary monsters in the "Apollo 18" movie, how close does Hollywood come to the Apollo reality? That's hard to judge at this point, because the studio hasn't made the film available for advance screenings. But based on the trailer, Pearlman is intrigued.

"The look of the lunar module and the spacesuits and the other equipment seems to be surprisingly accurate for this type of film, more accurate than for bigger-budget films like 'Transformers,'" he told me.

That verisimilitude may be due to NASA's collaboration on the production. Now that the space shuttle program is over, the space agency is trying harder to stay engaged with the public and the media world. Its recently announced partnerships with Tor-Forge Books on sci-fi novels and with the National Institute of Aerospace on the "Innovation Now" radio program serve as prime examples. When it comes to "Apollo 18," however, NASA may be having second thoughts. The Los Angeles Times reported today that NASA has begun to back away from its association with the movie.

Strangely enough, we're heading into a month when real-life moon missions are taking on more prominence: A week from today, NASA is due to launch its twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft toward the moon to study its gravity field. The $496 million GRAIL mission is due to last several months.

Also next week, the science team for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is scheduled to unveil new high-resolution images of Apollo landing sites. The pictures won't reveal that there are Hollywood monsters on the moon, but they will be useful to wave in the faces of those who still question whether the Apollo moon landings really happened.

The moon has even come back into the discussions of potential destinations for international deep-space voyages, after a period during which NASA turned its back on going back to the moon. We may be hearing more about the debate over future space exploration in the weeks to come. Maybe someday, we'll be able to follow in Apollo's footsteps for real.

Are you planning to see "Apollo 18"? I'd love to hear what you thought of the movie, or other fictional moon flicks such as "Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon," "Fly Me to the Moon" or plain old "Moon." Share your mini-reviews in the comment space below.

More on Apollo 18 in fiction and fact:

• PhotoBlog: Apollo hardware transformed into art
• Could NASA launch a secret moon mission?
• What if NASA hadn't canceled the Apollo program?
• Astronotes: The truth about the lost moon missions

Thanks to Ian A. Duncan for sharing his picture of the lunar module at the Cradle of Aviation Museum.

For a fictionalized treatment of the U.S. space program, check out the 1982 novel "Space" by James Michener, which includes its own version of an Apollo 18 mission. I'm officially designating "Space" as the latest selection for the Cosmic Log Used Book Club, which highlights books with cosmic themes that you can find at your favorite library or used-book outlet. Check out this archive for nine years' worth of CLUB Club selections.

If you're looking for a brand-new book to read, look into "Selecting the Mercury Seven: The Search for America's First Astronauts" by Colin Burgess. The book tells the story behind the selection process for the Mercury 7, and it turns out that Dale Cox Jr. is the book's principal character. "Dale Cox has led a truly amazing life, and it is fully covered in 'Selecting the Mercury Seven,'" Burgess says.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.