ARMSTRONG WALKS ON MOON:

July 20, 1969

At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth,
speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one
small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing
module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the
moon.The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in a
famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of
Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to
achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and
returning him safely to Earth." At the time, the United States was still
trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America
welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal.In 1966, after five years of work by an
international team of scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing
the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft
combination. Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center
in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out during a manned launch-pad
test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in
the fire.Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead,
and in October 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth
and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a
moon journey and landing. In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three
astronauts to the dark side of the moon and back, and in March 1969 Apollo 9
tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May,
the three astronauts of Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft
around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.At 9:32 a.m.
on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space
Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins
aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old civilian research pilot, was the commander of
the mission. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a
lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle,
manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins
remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and
at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of
Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas,
a famous message: "The Eagle has landed."At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the
original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made
his way down the lunar module's ladder, a television camera attached to the
craft recorded his progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds
of millions watched in great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his
famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone
and meant to be "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
He then planted his left foot on the gray, powdery surface, took a cautious step
forward, and humanity had walked on the moon."Buzz" Aldrin joined him on the
moon's surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the terrain,
planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President
Richard M. Nixon via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back
in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on
the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the
command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque
that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon--July 1969
A.D--We came in peace for all mankind."At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin
successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11
began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m.
on July 24.There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one
unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon,
astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left the
lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo program was a costly and labor
intensive endeavor, involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and
scientists, and costing $24 billion (close to $100 billion in today's dollars).
The expense was justified by Kennedy's 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the
moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.