I'm a space junkie, so forgive me if I get carried away... Johnson Space Center and Arizona State University's Space Exploration Resources have embarked on an ambitious plan to scan all of the original Apollo film films to create a high resolution digital archive. Amateur space buffs will soon have online access to a comprehensive collection of shots documenting the Apollo missions -- the pinnacle of human space exploration in the 20th century.
The original Apollo films are stored in the film archive at the Johnson Space Center. Because of their historical significance, they're not allowed to leave the building. As a result, the images that we see in print and online are often made from second or third generation prints. The truly exciting thing about this new project is that the digital scans will be made directly from the original film - each film will be removed from the long-term storage freezer just long enough to acclimatize and scan. The end result will be thousands of multi-megapixel images captured at a resolution of up to 200 pixels/mm at an extended bit depth (14-bit).
The project is slated to take about three years. They have already scanned the 35mm images (620 shots in total), and are currently working their way through the remaining 35,000 images in the collection. So far, only a handful of example scans from the Apollo Mapping camera are offered online, offering a tantalizing taste of what is to come.