Moonbounce : Sunday 19th July
THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT
On 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.
Join us on Sunday 19th July as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing with a day of talks and activities. During the afternoon we will be sending selected voice messages as radio transmissions to the Moon, bouncing them off its surface and catching their returning echoes with the Lovell Telescope - see below for how to enter our competition to send your own voice to the Moon!
The event begins at 12 noon and will include presentations by special guests, including:
- Professor Colin Pillinger: perhaps most famous for his work on the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, he also worked on the Apollo programme, and is now working on transferring Beagle technology to new missions to the Moon.
- Andrew Smith: author of "Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth", in which he interviewed all the remaining NASA astronauts who had walked on the Moon.
Other highlights include:
- Sir Bernard Lovell, Founder and first Director of Jodrell Bank, will speak about Jodrell's role in the space programme.
- Special messages recorded for us by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Professor Stephen Hawking which we will play at the event and bounce off the Moon!
- Dr Bob Pritchard who was responsible for carrying out much of the space tracking work at Jodrell during the 1960's will also be on hand to tell the story of what happened on that amazing night of July 20/21st.
A barbeque will be available over lunch and during the afternoon. The cafe will also be serving cream teas and other refreshments.
The activities will conclude about 4pm.
Price and booking information
Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the lunar surface (NASA).
The admission charge for the day's events is 4 pounds for adults and 2 pounds for concessions. A barbeque will be available at an additional cost of 6 pounds per head. We recommend booking well in advance by telephoning our visitor centre on 01477 571339.
The event is supported with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council as part of our Hot Spot Programme.
Send your voice to the Moon and back!
On 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon, uttering the memorable words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
Sadly, we can't send you to the Moon in person but we can bounce your voice off its surface!
We'd like you to tell us what you would have said in Neil Armstrong's place. Five lucky winners will be able to read out their messages, which will be turned into radio signals by the scientists here at Jodrell Bank, transmitted towards the Moon and reflected off its surface. After travelling through space at the speed of light, the returning signals will be caught just a few seconds later using the giant Lovell Telescope. The winners will be able to hear their own voices echoing back to Earth from the surface of the Moon, a quarter of a million miles away.
To submit your message please visit the Moonbounce competition website.
This competition is organised in collaboration with the Government's Science: [So what? So everything] campaign and the Metro newspaper.
Please be aware that successful operation of the Moonbounce experiment will be subject to weather and technical considerations. For example, there is a small chance that particularly high winds may prevent the Lovell or Cambridge Telescopes from tipping over to point at the Moon - but that's live science!
