This project archives and processes the complete set of Apollo mission journals (Apollo 7 through Apollo 17) from the official Apollo Lunar Surface Journal website. Each mission's journals are downloaded as HTML files, processed to extract and clean content, and organized for analysis.

Project Structure

apollo/
├── Makefile              # Automation for processing all missions
├── README.md             # This file
├── requirements.txt      # Python dependencies
├── apollo7/              # Apollo 7 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journals.py
│   └── requirements.txt
├── apollo8/              # Apollo 8 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journals.py
│   └── requirements.txt
├── apollo9/              # Apollo 9 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journals.py
│   ├── README.md
│   └── requirements.txt
├── apollo10/             # Apollo 10 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journals.py
│   ├── README.md
│   └── requirements.txt
├── apollo11/             # Apollo 11 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journal.py
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── html/            # Downloaded HTML files (generated)
│   └── js/              # Processed JavaScript files (generated)
├── apollo12/             # Apollo 12 mission data
│   ├── download_journals.py
│   ├── process_journals.py
│   └── requirements.txt
├── apollo13/             # Apollo 13 mission data
│   └── ...
├── ...                   # Apollo 14-17 directories
└── vp/                   # Virtual environment (optional)

Features

Complete Archive: Downloads all Apollo mission journals (7-17)
Automated Processing: Makefile automates download and processing for all missions
Content Extraction: Cleans HTML and extracts journal content
Organized Output: Generates structured JSON/JavaScript files for analysis
Flexible Usage: Process individual missions or all missions at once

Requirements

Python 3.8+
Dependencies listed in requirements.txt:
- requests>=2.31.0
- beautifulsoup4>=4.12.0
- nltk>=3.8.0
- lxml>=4.9.0

Installation

Clone this repository:
```
git clone <repository-url>
cd apollo
```
Install Python dependencies:
```
pip install -r requirements.txt
```

(Optional) Create and activate a virtual environment:

python -m venv vp
source vp/bin/activate  # On Windows: vp\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Using the Makefile (Recommended)

The Makefile provides convenient commands for processing all missions:

# Process all Apollo missions (7-17)
make all

# Process a specific mission
make apollo7
make apollo8
make apollo9
make apollo10
make apollo11
make apollo12
# ... etc for apollo13, apollo14, apollo15, apollo16, apollo17

# Clean up generated files (html/ and js/ directories)
make clean

# Show available commands
make help

Manual Processing

You can also run scripts directly in each mission directory:

# Navigate to a mission directory
cd apollo11

# Download the journals
python download_journals.py

# Process the downloaded journals
python process_journal.py

What Each Script Does

`download_journals.py`

Downloads HTML journal pages from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal website
Saves raw HTML files to the html/ subdirectory
Handles different URL structures for each mission
Includes error handling and rate limiting

`process_journal.py` / `process_journals.py`

Parses downloaded HTML files using BeautifulSoup
Extracts and cleans journal content (text, timestamps, speaker labels)
Converts content to structured formats (JSON, JavaScript)
Saves processed files to the js/ subdirectory

Transcript Parsing and Speakers

Each processed entry is tagged with a speaker, a mission-elapsed time (e.g. 055:48:40, negative for pre-launch), and sentence-split tokens. The parsers handle a few HTML dialects found across the journals:

Apollo Flight Journal (AFJ): <div class="cc"> blocks with a <b>HH:MM:SS Name:</b> header, plus classless <div>s that follow the same header pattern (used for crew dialogue in several missions).
Lunar Surface Journal (LSJ): bare <b>HH:MM:SS</b> timestamps followed by sibling text Name: ..., and a hybrid variant where the speaker lives inside the same bold tag.
Commentary / PAO: narrative blocks attributed to Commentary or PAO rather than a named crew member.

Speakers with parenthetical suffixes like Mattingly (continued) or Scott (onboard) are consolidated to the base name when that base name also appears elsewhere in the same mission, so downstream consumers see a single Mattingly rather than several variants.

Generated Files

After running the scripts, each mission directory will contain:

html/ - Raw HTML files downloaded from the source
js/ - Processed JavaScript/JSON files ready for analysis
- Typically includes files like journal_data.js or similar containing structured journal data

Data Sources

All journals are sourced from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ), which provides:

Transcripts of mission communications
Technical commentary and explanations
Photographs and multimedia references
Historical context and analysis

Mission Coverage

Apollo 7: First crewed Apollo mission, Earth orbital test (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham)
Apollo 8: First crewed mission to orbit the Moon (Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders)
Apollo 9: First test of Lunar Module in Earth orbit (James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart)
Apollo 10: "Dress rehearsal" for lunar landing, Lunar Module tested in lunar orbit (Thomas Stafford, John Young, Eugene Cernan)
Apollo 11: First lunar landing (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin)
Apollo 12: Precision landing near Surveyor 3 (Pete Conrad, Alan Bean)
Apollo 13: "Successful failure" - aborted lunar landing (Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert)
Apollo 14: Return to the Moon after Apollo 13 (Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell)
Apollo 15: First extended lunar mission with Lunar Rover (David Scott, James Irwin)
Apollo 16: Highlands exploration (John Young, Charles Duke)
Apollo 17: Final Apollo lunar mission (Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt)

License

This project is for educational and research purposes. The journal content is sourced from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, which is maintained by NASA and other space agencies. Please respect copyright and usage terms of the original sources.

Contributing

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch
Make your changes
Test thoroughly
Submit a pull request

Acknowledgments

NASA and the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal team for preserving and making available these historical records
The astronauts, engineers, and support personnel who made the Apollo missions possible
The open source community for the tools used in this project

Contact

For questions or issues, please open an issue in the project repository.

README.md

Apollo Mission Journals Archive

Overview