Item Tag: Apollo

Look out the window, and what do you see? You’re flying over the Moon on final approach to a – hopefully – soft landing. The year is 1969. You and a fellow astronaut are about to make history by making the first manned landing on the Moon. You are looking out of a small triangular window at the bleak and forbidding lunar surface as you navigate to your landing spot. In addition to all the state-of-the-art computing power, the window has a decidedly low-tech but very useful feature known as the LPD, or Landing Point Designator: an etched scale showing where you will land given your present course. The double-pane window is etched in green on the inside window and red on the outside, so when both are lined up, your eyes are in the proper position. The number on the scale that corresponds to the number on the navigation display is where you’ll be landing. What we have here is a 1/4 size replica of that commander’s window on the Apollo Lunar Module. While it has only one pane – and thus shows only the green scale – the LPD is faithfully laser-etched on the acrylic window, and the lunar landscape is as Neil Armstrong may have seen it out the window, just about the time he was switching to manual control for the landing, at an altitude of about 500 feet. The frame is custom 3D printed in titanium metallic plastic and held together with real screws. Should you ever want to change the photo, the frame can be disassembled by removing the screws.Size is about 7.5″ X 6″. Has wall hanger on back. For greater realism, hang with the top edge rotated about 10 degrees counterclockwise from horizontal, as shown in the first photo. This will get the lunar horizon level and duplicate the view more precisely, since the windows are not straight on the Lunar Module.Sadly, the rest of the LEM is not included! Note: Since this is 3D printed plastic, it will show visible layer lines.NOTE 2: I’ve had several people ask if I can make a larger or full-size version, and no, I can’t.