Fly Me To The Moon: Space Race During The Cold War

Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11 Moon Landing 

On July 20th, 1969 Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made history as being the first people to land on the moon. I wanted to post some websites I've found to help students learn more about this historic event and the Space Race during The Cold War.

Websites:

Apollo 11: Commemorating the first humans steps on the Moon via Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a lot of information, images, videos about the moon landing.

Mission To Space with NASA & Legos is a fun interactive look at space exploration. This is great for younger students.  

Fly Me To The Moon JFK Tapes via The Miller Center is audio of President Kennedy and NASA Director James Webb discuss the future of the US Space Program including the possibility of a Moon landing. 

Explore the Apollo 11 Moon Landing via NASA.gov has a lot of great images and information about the moon landing where you can track the explorer's journey.

Nixon and the U.S. Space Program via National Archives has artifacts and documents about the historical moon landing, including a speech President Nixon never had to give In Event of Moon Disaster.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins Go Through Customs and Sign Immigration Form After First Moon Landing (1969) via Open Culture is a great story (and image of the paperwork) about the astronauts return to Earth.

We Choose The Moon via JFK Museum and Library is a great interactive to look at the Apollo Mission.

Project Apollo Archive on flickr is a database of thousand of pictures from the Apollo missions. Search through Albums to help you find specific images for the different Apollo missions.

On Twitter relive the Apollo 11 Moon landing with @ReliveApollo11 from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum as they live tweet the Apollo 11 Mission.

Apollo 11 via History.Com has a lot of facts, videos, and resources to learn more about the Moon landing.

NASA -The Spacesuit is a fun interactive that looks at the evolution of the suits of the Astronauts.

YouTube Videos:

The Moon: Crash Course Astronomy #12 (YouTube)
Learn more about the Moon.

Who won the space race? with Jeff Steers a TED-ED (YouTube)
This video looks at the history of the Space Race during the Cold War.




Apollo 8's Christmas Eve 1968 Message (YouTube)
Famous Christmas Eve message that quotes the book of Genesis.



In the 1950's Walt Disney hired German Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun to help make Tomorrowland as accurate as possible.  The Disney-Von Braun Collaboration and Its Influence on Space Exploration by Mike Wright is a great article that describes this relationship and how it influenced space exploration. Out of this collaboration came several Television shows such as the ones below.

Disney Animated Educational Video Man In Space 1955  (YouTube)


Disney Education Animation Man and The Moon 1955 (YouTube)

Disneyland Mars and Beyond 1954 (YouTube)





Do you have any great resources or activities to teach about the Moon landing or the Space Race? I would love to hear about them in the comments section below.