Posted on July 20, 2021
This is an update of my post published on July 20, 2010:
On this day in 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to land on the moon. During the 21 hours that the two astronauts were on the moon, they planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface, spoke to President Richard Nixon through a telephone-radio connection, took the first moon walks, and collected more than 47 pounds of lunar rocks.
And they did it all on TV! I was among the more than 600 million people watching―and for me it was THE highlight of TV in my childhood! (You Tube has lots of videos that include the first broadcast from another world.)
Armstrong, Aldrin and astronaut Michael Collins flew to the moon on the space flight called Apollo 11. Once there, Collins stayed with the command ship, Columbia, while Aldrin steered the landing craft, Eagle, to the lunar surface, landing in the so-called Sea of Tranquility. (There is no liquid water on the moon, so it isn't really a sea.) NASA personnel in Houston, Texas, stayed in touch with the astronauts through radio transmissions and cheered them on.
Some of the big moments included Neil Armstrong announcing, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” and, when he first stepped down onto the dusty moon, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Check out this more detailed You Tube video about Apollo 11.
Did you know...?
The astronauts were supposed to sleep for five hours after landing on the moon, before they went outside. But like little kids too excited to sleep, they skipped the sleep period.
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| Even though we cannot see the astronauts' faces, we can assume that they are pleased as punch to be the first humans on the Moon! |
Recordings of the original transmission of that first moonwalk were accidentally destroyed. Of course, there are lots of copies of the video in broadcast format, but NASA was happy when copies of the original footage were located in Australia, in one of the places that originally received the lunar broadcast.
Some people have concocted a crazy conspiracy theory that humans have never really flown to and walked on the moon. They claim that all of the moon landings (there were five more after Apollo 11) were hoaxes!
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| One way to prove that humans have been to the Moon is to shoot a laser beam at it and clock its return. Buzz Aldrin laid a reflector module on the Moon's surface so that scientists on Earth could accurately measure the Moon's distance over time. (The Moon is very very slowly getting closer to the Earth.) Lots of different scientists have done the simple experiment of sending a laser beam to the reflector. |
Learn more about the moon landing
This website was created in time for the 50-year anniversary of Apollo 11! The anniversary's logo features a photo of Mars and the words "the next giant leap."
Check out a personal account of a man who turned 13 on the day humans first walked on the moon.
Take a quiz on the moon at the National Geographic Kids website.
Also on this date:
