New Website Lets You Relive Early Space Exploration Missions

For years, NASA has had the transcripts from its epoch-defining early missions online. But their ASCII aesthetic prevented them from gaining wide distribution. Even if you were looking at the dialog from the most exciting moments in the history of science nerdery, it sure didn't feel that way.

Now, a small team has stepped forward to remedy that situation with a new site, Spacelog. Starting with the Apollo 13 and Mercury 6 (when John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth), they've transformed the NASA transcripts into a series of searchable, linkable pages that look like Twitter conversations. It's really a wonderful translation of the original documents, and it was built in just a week.

In any case, go take a look, you're going to like it. Here's the moment when John Glenn begins his first orbit.