UnNews:NASA commemorates moon landing with new moon
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| NASA commemorates moon landing with new moon | 
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18 July 2009
SPACE, The Final Frontier -- NASA unveiled a new replica Moon Saturday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The New Moon, dubbed Moon 2, is nearly identical in appearance and barrenness to the original moon as it existed in 1969.
Moon 2 is the first in a series of commemorative events headed by NASA. In the next week, the organization also plans to to recreate the moon landing in mime and build a facsimile of Earth where, over the course of several thousand years, civilization will achieve the means to commit itself to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin attended the New Moon's launch, declaring the event "our first significant step in honoring a field we've long since abandoned but continue to trivially promote and exploit."
"Isn't it great that forty years after we walk on the moon, we can still talk about how we walked on the moon?" Aldrin reminisced at the event. "Nevermind the fact that we're launching an entire second moon. What a country!"
NASA plans to secure the moon's place in orbit some time later this week. The original moon is expected to be phased out over the course of the next several billion years when its orbit decays, causing it to catastrophically crash into the Earth's surface.
Moon 2 introduces several features moon fans have long expected from the latest versions. In addition to having a sustainable atmosphere and a more compact size, Moon 2 can shoot video, upload pictures directly to Flickr, and sync with iTunes. Later versions of the Moon will likely include 4G support, as in both wireless Internet speed and gravitational pull.
Sources[edit]
- Alexandra Alexander "NASA launches Moon 2". Google News, July 18, 2009