The Doctor Lands on the Moon for the BBC

London Underground Comics organiser Oli Smith has penned a new Doctor Who short story for the BBC Doctor Who web site to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of man first stepping foot on the Moon.

Blue Moon, which begins today on the official site, is a completely new adventure that puts the Doctor slap bang in the middle of the first Apollo Moon landing. It's set during the tumultuous days of 16th, 17th and 20th July, 1969 and the next three parts will run on those dates, with the first part published today, Wednesday, 15th July.

There's everything you could want from a story set during such a crucial moment in Earth's history - mysterious aliens, sinister US agents, a threat to the future of mankind and, err, BBC Radio 4's The Archers.

"I’ve tried to make this story as ‘real time’ as possible," says Oli of the story on on his web site. "The events in the story correspond to the day that each part is put up. I’m really proud of it." In fact, he enjoyed it so much he's done a bit of fan art for the story (above) which he hopes will whet your appetite.

"I didn't want the Doctor to take anything away from the achievements of the Apollo mission," he says of the story on the BBC site, "but rather to prevent outside influences, both extra terrestrial and closer to home, from manipulating events for their own ends."

This is Oli's second short story for Doctor Who, his first being “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for the Doctor Who Storybook 2010 (Annual), out on 1st August, illustrated by the brilliant Martin Geraghty.

"Surprisingly," says Oli, "both stories are pretty hard sci fi (well, for Doctor Who anyway) but both have been a complete blast to write so long may my adventuring with the Doctor continue."

Alongside Blue Moon the BBC is also a publishing material looking at representations of the Moon in Doctor Who. There's a new Lunar Gallery showing some striking imagery from several moon-related stories.

Some of those adventures are briefly revisited in a series of Video Clips and they also present The Dark Side of the Moon, a precise history of how the silvery satellite has been depicted in Doctor Who.