Apollo 11th's lunar landing took place 40 years ago today, after a successful launch on July 16th, 1969. The web's been buzzing with moon-news for awhile now (see our previous post here) and we wanted to share with you a few more of our favorite links.

NASA has gone to special lengths to digitally restore the old moon footage. You can watch the full list of clips at NASA's site or just the condensed montage below. For a full trip through Apollo 11 history by video, check out Mashable's chronological round up of YouTube clips.

Next, BoingBoing Gadgets posted an interesting piece about Buzz Aldrin, where he discusses tinges of disillusionment with the moonwalking aftermath and his recent publicity push to reach a younger audience (including rapping with Snoop Dog and scheduling an interview with Ali G).

We also love this image of the moon from 1888, painted by moon-mapper Julius Grimm, using his own extensive photographs of the moon's surface as a reference. The precisely rendered image accurately represents the surface of the moon, but shows it in a way that it could never be seen in real life: "fully lit across the entire surface at once." Posted a few months ago on but does it float, this reminds us of how far we've come!

And finally (all seriousness aside), The Beginnings of Space Travel, a sculpture by Werner Reiterer, is a humorous speculation on where this whole thing might have really started (via today and tomorrow).

Hurrah!