WeChooseTheMoonForty years ago today, Apollo 11 lifted off en route to the first moon landing. Today, I’m listening to the mission in real time, thanks to We Choose the Moon.

We Choose the Moon is a project of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. It is a re-creation of the Apollo 11 mission in several different channels. On the website, you can see a mission-time clock with a map of the mission’s progress. You can also follow “broadcasts” from CAPCOM, the command module, and the lunar module on Twitter. But the best part is the audio broadcast, which is replaying the actual audio from the mission in real time. I plan to keep it playing as often as possible.

One of the goals of historical sites like Old Sturbridge Village is to give visitors a bit of the experience of what it was like to have been there. We Choose the Moon is the most amazing re-creation of what it must have been like to have followed the moon landing. I wonder what people who followed the landing in 1969 think of this.

The launch is in two minutes.