Note: At the end of the video you can see the immense printout of the famous "Earthrise" picture taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966 as retrieved by the LOIRP (Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project) being hung inside the Hover Test Facility where our friends at MoonExpress are testing their spacecraft.

"In this prequel to the Moon Express Lander Development webisodes, company co-founder & CEO Bob Richards narrates an overview of his Phoenix Mars Lander experience and the very different challenges of landing on the Moon. For the first time, Bob gives a public peak inside the project and the Hover Test Facility located a the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, California."

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior." More

- Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Releases New Image of Apollo 12/Surveyor III Landing Site, earlier post

- Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Releases New High Resolution Image of The Apollo 14 Landing Site With EVA Details, earlier post

- Damaged Tape and Murky Moon Views (Apollo 11), earlier post

- LOIRP Mentioned at Apollo 11 Anniversary Celebration, earlier post

Hunt for Apollo’s lost dog Snoopy, Skymania

"Astronomers are teaming up with schools to use robotic telescopes over the internet to scan the night sky and find the spacecraft. The telescopes, part of the Faulkes Telescope Project run by Glamorgan University, are in Hawaii and Australia meaning schools can look with them during normal lesson times in the UK."

Memorial: Bill Muehlberger, University of Teaxs Austin

"The Jackson School community mourns the loss of Bill Muehlberger and extend their condolences to his family. He died of natural causes on Wednesday, September 14. An emeritus professor in geology, he taught at the University of Texas at Austin for nearly 40 years before officially retiring in 1992. He also taught geology to multiple generations of NASA astronauts beginning with Apollo.

Apollo 18: A Review And Interview With Technical Advisor Gerry Griffin

"People's fascination with space conspiracies has always intrigued me. Facts are irrelevant once someone has made up their mind about something - usually involving the big evil government covering something up - usually evidence of aliens visiting us. I have some personal experience with this via my involvement with the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) which is being run on a low budget basis outside the gate at NASA Ames Research Center in a McDonalds hamburger joint that closed years ago. The building was free and we were not fussy. With my co-lead Dennis Wingo and a lot of help from NASA and volunteers, we managed to restore images from the original 40+ year analog data tapes at unprecedented resolution when compared to what people saw in the 1960s. More information can be found at the official LOIRP website at http://www.moonviews.com

When we were getting ready to release the images some of the nutty websites got word and came up with all manner of zany conspiracy theories. My favorite was linking the fact that we were doing this in "McDonalds" with "McDonnell Douglas" and some evil dark conspiracy. The fact that they can't even note the difference in the spelling of these names says a lot. They also made a lot of the fact that ARC's Center Director is a former USAF Brigadier General. Oh yes, and there is that pirate flag I hung in the window - that didn't help either."

NASA will host a media teleconference at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 6, to reveal new images of three Apollo landing sites taken from the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. Teleconference participants are:

-- Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Mark Robinson, principal investigator, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, Arizona State University, Tempe
-- Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must email Nancy Jones at nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and work telephone number by 10 a.m. on Sept. 6.

Supporting information and visuals for the briefing will be posted at 11:45 a.m. EDT Sept. 6 at: http://www.nasa.gov/lro Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on the Web at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio