Synopsis: Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, WeChooseTheMoon.org uses archival audio, video, photos and 'real time' transmissions to tell the story of Apollo 11's lunar mission, creating an interactive experience that rekindles the nostalgic joy of early space travel.

Nothing captures the imagination quite like space travel. And one of the great catalyst of modern space exploration is the captivating tale of the Apollo Space Program. Putting a man on the moon, as it turns out, made quite an impression.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the historic journey, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum has launched a new website (www.WeChooseTheMoon.org) – a full-fledged interactive experience, really. It combines modern social networks, 3D animation and interactive platforms with NASA’s archival audio, video and photos to allow visitors to experience the Apollo 11 mission in real time.

The website ‘launched’ (we couldn’t resist) at 9:32am on July 16th – exactly 40 years to the minute after the first mission left earth – and follows the capsule's course from takeoff to the moon, ending with the lunar landing and Armstrong's celebrated walk.

This is a story for kids to enjoy, surely, but it’s the big kids, like the ones who were kids when the actual mission happened, that will undoubtedly have a visceral connection.

Back in ’69, a stargazing pre-teen had only a handful of ways to track the mission. Daily newspapers (anybody remember those?), television (primarily through the evening news), and radio (the most immediate tool available at the time). Now, connecting to the mission borders on digital overkill.

Immersive 3D animation re-creates the four-day mission. Well done, but nothing that hasn’t been seen before. You can zoom and pan around the spacecraft. Nice touch. But connect the oceans of archives to the rich media tools and social platforms, and it’s enough to silence even the most resilient moonwalk fraud conspiracy theorist.

There’s mission control and cockpit communication audio (complete with lengthy bursts of background crackling in-between). Videos and images of various modules and in-flight procedures. A mission widget to keep track of every detail on your desktop or through Facebook or MySpace pages. Heck, you can even get mission updates and messages from the astronauts via Twitter (great, another reason for Baby-Boomers to use Twitter).

U.S. President John F. Kennedy said: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one which we intend to win."

Now, if NASA could only provide this sort of experience, and tell this kind of story, with their current programs … we might be planting a flag on Mars sooner than you think.