By Ed Downs

To be Sure, this writer is a geek, and nothing churns my mind as much as does the thought to taking a walk on the moon.  Well, NASA is now making that possible, or at least nearly so.  Many readers may not know that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the moon, taking pictures at a rate that even Google would envy.  And, as a taxpayer entity, NASA is making these photos available to the general public, at a resolution that can place one nearly on the surface.  The following NASA News Release contains the detail of this interactive adventure and we at In Flight USA invite you to take the cross country of a life time and visit our nearest celestial neighbor at http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/gigapan.  Enjoy the trip!

NASA Releases First Interactive Mosaic of Lunar North Pole

Spectacular LROC Northern Polar Mosaic (LNPM) allows exploration from 60ªN up to the pole at the astounding pixel scale of two meters. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have created the largest high-resolution mosaic of our moon’s north polar region. The six-and-a-half feet (two-meters)-per-pixel images cover an area equal to more than one-quarter of the United States.

Web viewers can zoom in and out, and pan around an area. Constructed from 10,581 pictures, the mosaic provides enough detail to see textures and subtle shading of the lunar terrain. Consistent lighting throughout the images makes it easy to compare different regions.