Apollo 11-era Collectables bring History Home

There were a few iconic images from the Apollo 11 flight which occurred forty years ago this week. We have included a few rare internal images, as well as Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong's hometown newspaper's front page dated July 21, 1969.

Apollo collectibles are a great way to recapture the history surrounding the first moon landing flights of humanity. We suggest visiting flea markets or Goodwill centers for older National Geographics or other newspapers from the era.

Snoopy the dog from the Peanuts comic strip became a sort of internal mascot of a few of the Apollo missions. His exploits with the Red Baron in the newspaper allowed him to gain his astro wings on Apollo 10 as the lunar module was named for him.

Another collectible I have is a complete reprint of the Apollo 11 press kit from 1994. The book contains complete details and timelines highlighting the flight. Printed weeks before the 1969 flight, this 25th anniversary reprint outlines crew bios, meals, experiments and more in 250 pages. A great book for any library.

Another thing one can do is pickup rare NASA Apollo crew recordings from the missions via apple.com's iTunes.

For .99 cents to $2.oo each, you can download and save both video and audio to your computer's hard drive and iPod or iPhone.

James holds an actual Snoopy stuffed dog which the author's father gave to Charles in Christmas 1969.

40 Years Later: Mankind's First Lunar Landing

Buzz Aldrin walks on the Moon on July 20, 1969. (NASA/Neil Armstrong)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Forty years ago today, two NASA astronauts brought a golden spacecraft down upon the Moon's surface, and stepped onto another world as America walked upon the lunar surface for the first time.

Launched on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was commanded by Neil A. Armstrong. Command module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Lunar Module Pilot Michael Collins rounded out the crew. This was the second space flight by each astronaut.

After traveling for a few days, the trio reached lunar orbit; and it was time for Neil and Buzz to leave Collins in the command module Columbia, and take the lunar module Eagle down to the surface.

With only sixty seconds of fuel left to keep them aloft, Armstrong, steered their tiny lunar lander away from a boulder field in which the craft's computer was sending them to land in. Alarms then began to go off in the cabin alerting them. The alarms, Mission Control in Houston would later state, was telling them that the computer was not able to process all the data coming in.

"30 seconds," called CAPCOM Charlie Duke in Houston to the Apollo 11 lander, Eagle, warning of how much time Armstrong and Aldrin had left in order to land or abort the entire landing.