Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American
spaceflight
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...
that first
landed humans on the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
. Commander
Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
landed the
Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17
UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named
Tranquility Base
Tranquility Base ( la, Statio Tranquillitatis) is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin l ...
upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot
Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
flew the
Command Module ''Columbia'' in
lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin ''Columbia''.
Apollo 11 was launched by a
Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...
rocket from
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...
on
Merritt Island, Florida
Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Floridian coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and so ...
, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
's
Apollo program. The Apollo
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...
had three parts: a
command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a
service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a
lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.
After being
sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into
''Eagle'' and landed in the
Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used ''Eagle''s ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned ''Eagle'' before they performed the maneuvers that propelled ''Columbia'' out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and
splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space.
Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on
live TV
Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television over the Internet when content or programming is played continuously (not on demand) ...
to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind."
Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
Background
In the late
1950s
The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the "Fifties" or the " '50s") (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959.
Throughout the decade, the world continued its re ...
and early
1960s, the United States was engaged in the
Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik 1, the first
artificial satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisoto ...
. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and challenged American claims of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the
Sputnik crisis, and triggered the
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
to prove which superpower would achieve superior spaceflight capability.
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
responded to the Sputnik challenge by creating the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and initiating
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
, which aimed to launch a man into
Earth orbit
Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi) in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes days (1 sidereal year), during which time Eart ...
. But on April 12, 1961, Soviet
cosmonaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. T ...
became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth. Nearly a month later, on May 5, 1961,
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...
became the first American in space, completing a 15-minute suborbital journey. After being recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, he received a congratulatory telephone call from Eisenhower's successor,
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
.
Since the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
had higher lift capacity
launch vehicle
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...
s, Kennedy chose, from among options presented by NASA, a challenge beyond the capacity of the existing generation of rocketry, so that the US and Soviet Union would be starting from a position of equality. A crewed mission to the Moon would serve this purpose.
On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
on "Urgent National Needs" and declared:
On September 12, 1962, Kennedy
delivered another speech before a crowd of about 40,000 people in the
Rice University football stadium in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. A widely quoted refrain from the middle portion of the speech reads as follows:
![John F](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/John_F._Kennedy_speaks_at_Rice_University.jpg)
In spite of that, the proposed program faced the opposition of many Americans and was dubbed a "
moondoggle" by
Norbert Wiener, a mathematician at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
. The effort to land a man on the Moon already had a name:
Project Apollo. When Kennedy met with
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, the
Premier of the Soviet Union
The Premier of the Soviet Union (russian: Глава Правительства СССР) was the head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The office had four different names throughout its existence: Chairman of the ...
in June 1961, he proposed making the Moon landing a joint project, but Khrushchev did not take up the offer. Kennedy again proposed a joint expedition to the Moon in a speech to the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
on September 20, 1963. The idea of a joint Moon mission was abandoned after Kennedy's death.
An early and crucial decision was choosing
lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to ...
over both
direct ascent
Direct ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly, without first assembling the vehicle in Earth orbit, or carrying a separate landing vehicle into orbit around the target body. It was proposed as ...
and
Earth orbit rendezvous. A
space rendezvous
A space rendezvous () is a set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance (e.g. within visual contact). Rendezvous requires a precise ...
is an
orbital maneuver in which two spacecraft navigate through space and meet up. In July 1962 NASA head
James Webb announced that lunar orbit rendezvous would be used and that the
Apollo spacecraft
The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable (single-use) spacecraft ...
would have three major parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. This design meant the spacecraft could be launched by a single
Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...
rocket that was then under development.
Technologies and techniques required for Apollo were developed by
Project Gemini. The Apollo project was enabled by NASA's adoption of new advances in
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...
electronic technology
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, including
metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s (MOSFETs) in the
Interplanetary Monitoring Platform Interplanetary Monitoring Platform was a program managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as part of the Explorers program, with the primary objectives of investigation of interplanetary plasma and the interplaneta ...
(IMP) and
silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ta ...
integrated circuit (IC) chips in the
Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC).
Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the
Apollo 1
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...
fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts
Gus Grissom
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer, pilot in the United States Air Force, and member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercur ...
,
Ed White, and
Roger B. Chaffee
Roger Bruce Chaffee (; February 15, 1935 – January 27, 1967) was an American Officer (armed forces), naval officer, United States naval aviator, aviator and Aeronautical engineering, aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apoll ...
died, and the subsequent investigation. In October 1968,
Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit, and in December
Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit. In March 1969,
Apollo 9
Apollo 9 (March 313, 1969) was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program. Flown in low Earth orbit, it was the second crewed Apollo mission that the United States launched via a Saturn V rocket, and was the first flight of the ful ...
put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit, and in May
Apollo 10
Apollo 10 (May 18–26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo8) to orbit the Moon. NASA described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, and ...
conducted a "dress rehearsal" in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon.
The Soviet Union appeared to be winning the Space Race by beating the US to firsts, but its early lead was overtaken by the US
Gemini program and Soviet failure to develop the
N1 launcher, which would have been comparable to the Saturn V. The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of
uncrewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, the Soviet Union launched
Luna 15
Luna 15 was a robotic space mission of the Soviet Luna programme, that crashed into the Moon on 21 July 1969.
On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, a robotic Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at th ...
, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in
Mare Crisium
Mare Crisium (Latin ''crisium'', the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. The basin is of the Pre-Imbrian period, 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago.
Characteristics
Mare Cri ...
about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home. The
Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories
Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio as ...
radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.
Personnel
Prime crew
The initial crew assignment of Commander
Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP)
Jim Lovell
James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of th ...
, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP)
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
on the backup crew for Apollo9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of
Gemini 12
Gemini 12 (officially Gemini XII) With Gemini IV, NASA changed to Roman numerals for Gemini mission designations. was a 1966 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini. It was the 10th and final crewed Gemini flight ( Gemini 1 and Gemini 2 wer ...
. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo8 and Apollo9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11.
There would be one change.
Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
, the CMP on the Apollo8 crew, began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo8 crew, and when Collins recovered he joined Armstrong's crew as CMP. In the meantime,
Fred Haise
Fred Wallace Haise Jr. ( ; born November 14, 1933) is an American former NASA astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, and a test pilot. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having f ...
filled in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8. Apollo 11 was the second American mission where all the crew members had prior spaceflight experience, the first being Apollo 10. The next was
STS-26
STS-26 was the 26th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the seventh flight of the orbiter ''Discovery''. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on September 29, 1988, and landed four days later on October 3, 1988. STS-26 was decla ...
in 1988.
Deke Slayton
Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993) was a United States Air Force pilot, aeronautical engineer, and test pilot who was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts. He went on to become NASA's first ...
gave Armstrong the option to replace Aldrin with Lovell, since some thought Aldrin was difficult to work with. Armstrong had no issues working with Aldrin but thought it over for a day before declining. He thought Lovell deserved to command his own mission (eventually
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...
).
The Apollo 11 prime crew had none of the close cheerful camaraderie characterized by that of
Apollo 12
Apollo 12 (November 14–24, 1969) was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Pete Conra ...
. Instead, they forged an amiable working relationship. Armstrong in particular was notoriously aloof, but Collins, who considered himself a loner, confessed to rebuffing Aldrin's attempts to create a more personal relationship. Aldrin and Collins described the crew as "amiable strangers". Armstrong did not agree with the assessment, and said "... all the crews I was on worked very well together."
Backup crew
The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander,
William Anders
William Alison Anders (born 17 October 1933) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, ...
as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo8. In early 1969, he accepted a job with the
National Aeronautics and Space Council
The National Space Council is a body within the Executive Office of the President of the United States created in 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration, disbanded in 1993, and reestablished in June 2017 by the Donald Trump administrati ...
effective August 1969, and announced he would retire as an astronaut at that time.
Ken Mattingly
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (born March 17, 1936) is an American former aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy and astronaut who flew on the Apollo 16, STS-4 and STS-51-C missions.
Mattingly had ...
was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable.
By the normal crew rotation in place during Apollo, Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise were scheduled to fly on
Apollo 14
Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at s ...
after backing up for Apollo 11. Later, Lovell's crew was forced to switch places with
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...
's tentative
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...
crew to give Shepard more training time.
Support crew
During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists and mission ground rules, and ensured the prime and backup crews were apprised of changes. They developed procedures, especially those for emergency situations, so these were ready for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them. For Apollo 11, the support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly,
Ronald Evans and
Bill Pogue.
Capsule communicators
The
capsule communicator
Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...
(CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the
Mission Control Center in
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo 11, the CAPCOMs were:
Charles Duke
Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at ...
, Ronald Evans, Bruce McCandless II, James Lovell, William Anders, Ken Mattingly, Fred Haise, Don L. Lind, Owen K. Garriott and Harrison Schmitt.
Flight directors
The Flight controller#FLIGHT, flight directors for this mission were:
Other key personnel
Other key personnel who played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission include the following.
Preparations
Insignia
![Apollo 11 insignia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Apollo_11_insignia.png)
The Apollo 11 Mission patch, mission emblem was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". At Lovell's suggestion, he chose the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, as the symbol. Tom Wilson, a simulator instructor, suggested an olive branch in its beak to represent their peaceful mission. Collins added a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins decided the Eagle and the Moon would be in their natural colors, and decided on a blue and gold border. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11", and they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of ''everyone'' who had worked toward a lunar landing".
An illustrator at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) did the artwork, which was then sent off to NASA officials for approval. The design was rejected. Bob Gilruth, the director of the MSC felt the talons of the eagle looked "too warlike". After some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the talons. When the Eisenhower dollar, Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979.
Call signs
After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft ''Charlie Brown'' and ''Snoopy'', assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office at the MSC, to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. The name ''Snowcone'' was used for the CM and ''Haystack'' was used for the LM in both internal and external communications during early mission planning.
The LM was named ''Lunar Module Eagle, Eagle'' after the motif which was featured prominently on the mission insignia. At Scheer's suggestion, the CM was named ''Command module Columbia, Columbia'' after ''Columbiad#In fiction, Columbiad'', the giant cannon that launched a spacecraft (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel ''From the Earth to the Moon''. It also referred to Columbia (name), Columbia, a historical name of the United States. In Collins' 1976 book, he said ''Columbia'' was in reference to Christopher Columbus.
Mementos
![Apollo 11 Flown Silver Robbins Medallion (SN-416)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Apollo_11_Flown_Silver_Robbins_Medallion_%28SN-416%29.jpg)
The astronauts had personal preference kits (PPKs), small bags containing personal items of significance they wanted to take with them on the mission. Five PPKs were carried on Apollo 11: three (one for each astronaut) were stowed on ''Columbia'' before launch, and two on ''Eagle''.
Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 ''Wright Flyer''s left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing, along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Slayton by the widows of the Apollo1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on that mission and given to Slayton afterwards, but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton. Armstrong took it with him on Apollo 11.
Site selection
NASA's Apollo Site Selection Board announced five potential landing sites on February 8, 1968. These were the result of two years' worth of studies based on high-resolution photography of the lunar surface by the five uncrewed probes of the Lunar Orbiter program and information about surface conditions provided by the Surveyor program.
The best Earth-bound telescopes could not resolve features with the resolution Project Apollo required. The landing site had to be close to the lunar equator to minimize the amount of propellant required, clear of obstacles to minimize maneuvering, and flat to simplify the task of the landing radar. Scientific value was not a consideration.
Areas that appeared promising on photographs taken on Earth were often found to be totally unacceptable. The original requirement that the site be free of craters had to be relaxed, as no such site was found. Five sites were considered: Sites1 and2 were in the Sea of Tranquility (''Mare Tranquillitatis''); Site3 was in the Central Bay (''Sinus Medii''); and Sites4 and5 were in the Ocean of Storms (''Oceanus Procellarum'').
The final site selection was based on seven criteria:
* The site needed to be smooth, with relatively few craters;
* with approach paths free of large hills, tall cliffs or deep craters that might confuse the landing radar and cause it to issue incorrect readings;
* reachable with a minimum amount of propellant;
* allowing for delays in the launch countdown;
* providing the Apollo spacecraft with a free-return trajectory, one that would allow it to coast around the Moon and safely return to Earth without requiring any engine firings should a problem arise on the way to the Moon;
* with good visibility during the landing approach, meaning the Sun would be between 7and 20 degrees behind the LM; and
* a general slope of less than two degrees in the landing area.
The requirement for the Sun angle was particularly restrictive, limiting the launch date to one day per month.
A landing just after dawn was chosen to limit the temperature extremes the astronauts would experience. The Apollo Site Selection Board selected Site2, with Sites 3and5 as backups in the event of the launch being delayed. In May 1969, Apollo 10's lunar module flew to within of Site2, and reported it was acceptable.
First-step decision
During the first press conference after the Apollo 11 crew was announced, the first question was, "Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step onto the lunar surface?" Slayton told the reporter it had not been decided, and Armstrong added that it was "not based on individual desire".
One of the first versions of the egress checklist had the lunar module pilot exit the spacecraft before the commander, which matched what had been done on Gemini missions, where the commander had never performed the spacewalk. Reporters wrote in early 1969 that Aldrin would be the first man to walk on the Moon, and Associate Administrator George Mueller (NASA), George Mueller told reporters he would be first as well. Aldrin heard that Armstrong would be the first because Armstrong was a civilian, which made Aldrin livid. Aldrin attempted to persuade other lunar module pilots he should be first, but they responded cynically about what they perceived as a lobbying campaign. Attempting to stem interdepartmental conflict, Slayton told Aldrin that Armstrong would be first since he was the commander. The decision was announced in a press conference on April 14, 1969.
For decades, Aldrin believed the final decision was largely driven by the lunar module's hatch location. Because the astronauts had their spacesuits on and the spacecraft was so small, maneuvering to exit the spacecraft was difficult. The crew tried a simulation in which Aldrin left the spacecraft first, but he damaged the simulator while attempting to egress. While this was enough for mission planners to make their decision, Aldrin and Armstrong were left in the dark on the decision until late spring. Slayton told Armstrong the plan was to have him leave the spacecraft first, if he agreed. Armstrong said, "Yes, that's the way to do it."
The media accused Armstrong of exercising his commander's prerogative to exit the spacecraft first. Chris Kraft revealed in his 2001 autobiography that a meeting occurred between Gilruth, Slayton, Low, and himself to make sure Aldrin would not be the first to walk on the Moon. They argued that the first person to walk on the Moon should be like Charles Lindbergh, a calm and quiet person. They made the decision to change the flight plan so the commander was the first to egress from the spacecraft.
Pre-launch
![69-HC-620 - SA506](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Apollo_11_Saturn_V_SN_SA506_%2869-HC-620%29.jpg)
The ascent stage of Lunar Module Eagle, LM-5 ''Eagle'' arrived at the
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...
on January 8, 1969, followed by the descent stage four days later, and Command module Columbia, CSM-107 ''Columbia'' on January 23.
There were several differences between ''Eagle'' and Apollo 10's LM-4 ''Snoopy''; ''Eagle'' had a VHF radio antenna to facilitate communication with the astronauts during their EVA on the lunar surface; a lighter ascent engine; more thermal protection on the landing gear; and a package of scientific experiments known as the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP). The only change in the configuration of the command module was the removal of some insulation from the forward hatch. The CSM was mated on January 29, and moved from the Operations and Checkout Building to the Vehicle Assembly Building on April 14.
The S-IVB third stage of Saturn V AS-506 had arrived on January 18, followed by the S-II second stage on February 6, S-IC first stage on February 20, and the Saturn V Instrument Unit on February 27. At 12:30 on May 20, the assembly departed the Vehicle Assembly Building atop the crawler-transporter, bound for Launch Pad 39A, part of Launch Complex 39, while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon. A countdown test commenced on June 26, and concluded on July 2. The launch complex was floodlit on the night of July 15, when the crawler-transporter carried the service structure, mobile service structure back to its parking area.
In the early hours of the morning, the fuel tanks of the S-II and S-IVB stages were filled with liquid hydrogen. Fueling was completed by three hours before launch. Launch operations were partly automated, with 43 programs written in the ATOLL (programming language), ATOLL programming language.
Slayton roused the crew shortly after 04:00, and they showered, shaved, and had the traditional pre-flight breakfast of steak and eggs with Slayton and the backup crew. They then donned their space suits and began breathing pure oxygen. At 06:30, they headed out to Launch Complex 39. Haise entered ''Columbia'' about three hours and ten minutes before launch time. Along with a technician, he helped Armstrong into the left-hand couch at 06:54. Five minutes later, Collins joined him, taking up his position on the right-hand couch. Finally, Aldrin entered, taking the center couch. Haise left around two hours and ten minutes before launch.
The closeout crew sealed the hatch, and the cabin was purged and pressurized. The closeout crew then left the launch complex about an hour before launch time. The countdown became automated at three minutes and twenty seconds before launch time. Over 450 personnel were at the consoles in the firing room.
Mission
Launch and flight to lunar orbit
![Apollo 11 Launch - GPN-2000-000630](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Apollo_11_Launch_-_GPN-2000-000630.jpg)
An estimated one million spectators watched the launch of Apollo 11 from the highways and beaches in the vicinity of the launch site. Dignitaries included the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General (United States), General William Westmoreland, four Cabinet of the United States, cabinet members, 19 Governor (United States), state governors, 40 Mayoralty in the United States, mayors, 60 ambassadors and 200 congressmen. Vice President of the United States, Vice President Spiro Agnew viewed the launch with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson. Around 3,500 media representatives were present. About two-thirds were from the United States; the rest came from 55 other countries. The launch was televised live in 33 countries, with an estimated 25 million viewers in the United States alone. Millions more around the world listened to radio broadcasts. President Richard Nixon viewed the launch from his office in the White House with his NASA liaison officer, Apollo astronaut Frank Borman.
Saturn V AS-506 launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 Eastern Daylight Time, EDT).
At 13.2 seconds into the flight, the launch vehicle began to Roll program, roll into its flight azimuth of 72.058°. Full shutdown of the first-stage engines occurred about 2minutes and 42 seconds into the mission, followed by separation of the S-IC and ignition of the S-II engines. The second stage engines then cut off and separated at about 9minutes and 8seconds, allowing the first ignition of the S-IVB engine a few seconds later.
Apollo 11 entered a elliptic orbit, near-circular Earth orbit at an altitude of by , twelve minutes into its flight. After one and a half orbits, a second ignition of the S-IVB engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, with Collins in the left seat and at the controls, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed. This involved separating ''Columbia'' from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with ''Eagle'' still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon. This was done to avoid the third stage colliding with the spacecraft, the Earth, or the Moon. A Gravity assist, slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an heliocentric orbit, orbit around the Sun.
On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter
lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility about southwest of the crater Collins (crater), Sabine D. The site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers and the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and because it was unlikely to present major landing or EVA challenges. It lay about southeast of the Surveyor5 landing site, and southwest of Ranger8's crash site.
Lunar descent
![Apollo 11 CSM photographed from Lunar Module (AS11-37-5445)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Apollo_11_CSM_photographed_from_Lunar_Module_%28AS11-37-5445%29.jpg)
At 12:52:00 UTC on July 20, Aldrin and Armstrong entered
''Eagle'', and began the final preparations for lunar descent. At 17:44:00 ''Eagle'' separated from ''Columbia''. Collins, alone aboard ''Columbia'', inspected ''Eagle'' as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged, and that the landing gear was correctly deployed. Armstrong exclaimed: "The ''Eagle'' has wings!"
As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves passing landmarks on the surface two or three seconds early, and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point. ''Eagle'' was traveling too fast. The problem could have been mass concentration (astronomy), mascons—concentrations of high mass in a region or regions of the Moon's crust that contains a Gravity anomaly, gravitational anomaly, potentially altering ''Eagle'' trajectory. Flight Director Gene Kranz speculated that it could have resulted from extra air pressure in the docking tunnel, or a result of ''Eagle''s pirouette maneuver.
Five minutes into the descent burn, and above the surface of the Moon, the Apollo Guidance Computer, LM guidance computer (LGC) distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center, computer engineer Jack Garman told Flight controller#GUIDO, Guidance Officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all its tasks in real-time and had to postpone some of them. Margaret Hamilton (software engineer), Margaret Hamilton, the Director of Apollo Flight Computer Programming at the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory later recalled:
![Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle in landing configuration in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Module Columbia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Apollo_11_Lunar_Module_Eagle_in_landing_configuration_in_lunar_orbit_from_the_Command_and_Service_Module_Columbia.jpg)
During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time. Software engineer Don Eyles concluded in a 2005 Guidance and Control Conference paper that the problem was due to a hardware design bug previously seen during testing of the first uncrewed LM in Apollo 5. Having the rendezvous radar on (so it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort) should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up. The extra spurious cycle stealing, as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms.
Landing
When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a crater (later determined to be West (lunar crater), West crater), so he took semi-automatic control. Armstrong considered landing short of the boulder field so they could collect geological samples from it, but could not since their horizontal velocity was too high. Throughout the descent, Aldrin called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting ''Eagle''. Now above the surface, Armstrong knew their propellant supply was dwindling and was determined to land at the first possible landing site.
Armstrong found a clear patch of ground and maneuvered the spacecraft towards it. As he got closer, now above the surface, he discovered his new landing site had a crater in it. He cleared the crater and found another patch of level ground. They were now from the surface, with only 90 seconds of propellant remaining. Lunar dust kicked up by the LM's engine began to impair his ability to determine the spacecraft's motion. Some large rocks jutted out of the dust cloud, and Armstrong focused on them during his descent so he could determine the spacecraft's speed.
A light informed Aldrin that at least one of the probes hanging from ''Eagle'' footpads had touched the surface a few moments before the landing and he said: "Contact light!" Armstrong was supposed to immediately shut the engine down, as the engineers suspected the pressure caused by the engine's own exhaust reflecting off the lunar surface could make it explode, but he forgot. Three seconds later, ''Eagle'' landed and Armstrong shut the engine down. Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA—out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged: "Out of detent. Auto." Aldrin continued: "Mode control—both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm—off. 413 is in."
![Apollo 11 Landing Site & West Crater](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Apollo_11_Landing_Site_%26_West_Crater.png)
ACA was the Attitude control, Attitude Control Assembly—the LM's control stick. Output went to the LGC to command the reaction control system (RCS) jets to fire. "Out of Detent" meant the stick had moved away from its centered position; it was spring-centered like the turn indicator in a car. LGC address 413 contained the variable that indicated the LM had landed.
''Eagle'' landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with of usable fuel remaining. Information available to the crew and mission controllers during the landing showed the LM had enough fuel for another 25 seconds of powered flight before an abort without touchdown would have become unsafe,
but post-mission analysis showed that the real figure was probably closer to 50 seconds.
Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than most subsequent missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of the propellant sloshing more than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.
Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post-landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to the CAPCOM, Charles Duke, with the words, "Houston,
Tranquility Base
Tranquility Base ( la, Statio Tranquillitatis) is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin l ...
here. The ''Lunar Module Eagle, Eagle'' has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan—Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."
Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth:
He then took Eucharist, communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 Genesis reading, Apollo8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. For this reason, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster, Texas, Webster Presbyterianism, Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, Dean Woodruff. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20. The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period, but they chose to begin preparations for the EVA early, thinking they would be unable to sleep.
Lunar surface operations
![As11-40-5886](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Armstrong_on_Moon_%28As11-40-5886%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Preparations for
Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
to walk on the Moon began at 23:43. These took longer than expected; three and a half hours instead of two.
During training on Earth, everything required had been neatly laid out in advance, but on the Moon the cabin contained a large number of other items as well, such as checklists, food packets, and tools. Six hours and thirty-nine minutes after landing Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, and ''Eagle'' was depressurized.
''Eagle''s hatch was opened at 02:39:33. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his primary life support system, portable life support system (PLSS).
Some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress. At 02:51 Armstrong began his descent to the lunar surface. The remote control unit on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly (MESA) folded against ''Eagle'' side and activate the TV camera.
Apollo 11 used slow-scan television (TV) incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor (thus, a broadcast of a broadcast), significantly reducing the quality of the picture.
The signal was received at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Goldstone in the United States, but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes Observatory, Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth. Copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, but Apollo 11 missing tapes, recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were likely destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.
After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder",
at 02:56:15,
six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off ''Eagle'' footpad and declared: "That's one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind."
Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. A more recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. Other analysis points to the claims of static and slurring as "face-saving fabrication", and that Armstrong himself later admitted to misspeaking the line.
About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. Twelve minutes after the sample was collected, he removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod.
The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA. Still photography was accomplished with a Hasselblad camera that could be operated hand held or mounted on Armstrong's Apollo/Skylab A7L, Apollo space suit. Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface. He described the view with the simple phrase: "Magnificent desolation."
Armstrong said moving in the Gravitation of the Moon, lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around."
Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into ''Eagle'' shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, but the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.
The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust, which soiled the outer part of their suits.
![Buzz salutes the U](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg)
The astronauts planted the Lunar Flag Assembly containing a flag of the United States on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Aldrin remembered, "Of all the jobs I had to do on the Moon the one I wanted to go the smoothest was the flag raising."
But the astronauts struggled with the telescoping rod and could only jam the pole about into the hard lunar surface. Aldrin was afraid it might topple in front of TV viewers. But he gave "a crisp West Point salute".
Before Aldrin could take a photo of Armstrong with the flag, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission, which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House." Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief.
![Apollo 11 bootprint](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Apollo_11_bootprint.jpg)
They deployed the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, EASEP, which included a passive seismic experiment package used to measure moonquakes and a Retroreflector#On the Moon, retroreflector array used for the lunar laser ranging experiment.
Then Armstrong walked from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West (lunar crater), Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core samples. He used the geologist's hammer to pound in the tubes—the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11—but was unable to penetrate more than deep. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes. Aldrin shoveled of soil into the box of rocks in order to pack them in tightly. Two types of rocks were found in the geological samples: basalt and breccia. Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. All have subsequently been found on Earth.
![Apollo 11 plaque closeup on Moon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Apollo_11_plaque_closeup_on_Moon.jpg)
While on the surface, Armstrong uncovered a lunar plaque, plaque mounted on the LM ladder, bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read:
At the behest of the Nixon administration to add a reference to God, NASA included the vague date as a reason to include A.D., which stands for Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord" (although it should have been placed before the year, not after).
Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong his metabolic rates were high, and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. As metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension.
In a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon.
Lunar ascent
Aldrin entered ''Eagle'' first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC). This proved to be an inefficient tool, and later missions preferred to carry equipment and samples up to the LM by hand.
Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his sleeve pocket, and Aldrin tossed the bag down. Armstrong then jumped onto the ladder's third rung, and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, an empty Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. The hatch was closed again at 05:11:13. They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep.
![Aldrin Looks Back at Tranquility Base - GPN-2000-001102](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Aldrin_Looks_Back_at_Tranquility_Base_-_GPN-2000-001102.jpg)
Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an ''In Event of Moon Disaster'' announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster.
According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's World War I poem "The Soldier (poem), The Soldier".
While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. The nonconductive tip of a Duro Marker pen, felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch.
After more than hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, the astronauts left behind: an
Apollo 1
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...
mission patch in memory of astronauts Roger B. Chaffee, Roger Chaffee,
Gus Grissom
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer, pilot in the United States Air Force, and member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercur ...
, and Ed White (astronaut), Edward White, who died when their command module caught fire during a test in January 1967; two memorial medals of Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. T ...
, who died in 1967 and 1968 respectively; a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace; and a silicon message disk carrying the Apollo 11 goodwill messages, goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon along with messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disk also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and then-current top management.
![Apollo 11 photo map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Apollo_11_photo_map.svg)
After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54:00 UTC, they lifted off in ''Eagle'' ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard ''Columbia'' in lunar orbit. Film taken from the LM ascent stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over." Subsequent Apollo missions planted their flags farther from the LM.
''Columbia'' in lunar orbit
During his day flying solo around the Moon, Collins never felt lonely. Although it has been said "not since Adam has any human known such solitude", Collins felt very much a part of the mission. In his autobiography he wrote: "this venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two". In the 48 minutes of each orbit when he was out of radio contact with the Earth while ''Columbia'' passed round the far side of the Moon, the feeling he reported was not fear or loneliness, but rather "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation".
One of Collins' first tasks was to identify the lunar module on the ground. To give Collins an idea where to look, Mission Control radioed that they believed the lunar module landed about off target. Each time he passed over the suspected lunar landing site, he tried in vain to find the module. On his first orbits on the back side of the Moon, Collins performed maintenance activities such as dumping excess water produced by the fuel cells and preparing the cabin for Armstrong and Aldrin to return.
Just before he reached the dark side on the third orbit, Mission Control informed Collins there was a problem with the temperature of the coolant. If it became too cold, parts of ''Columbia'' might freeze. Mission Control advised him to assume manual control and implement Environmental Control System Malfunction Procedure 17. Instead, Collins flicked the switch on the system from automatic to manual and back to automatic again, and carried on with normal housekeeping chores, while keeping an eye on the temperature. When ''Columbia'' came back around to the near side of the Moon again, he was able to report that the problem had been resolved. For the next couple of orbits, he described his time on the back side of the Moon as "relaxing". After Aldrin and Armstrong completed their EVA, Collins slept so he could be rested for the rendezvous. While the flight plan called for ''Eagle'' to meet up with ''Columbia'', Collins was prepared for a contingency in which he would fly ''Columbia'' down to meet ''Eagle''.
Return
![Apollo 11 lunar module](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Apollo_11_lunar_module.jpg)
''Eagle'' rendezvoused with ''Columbia'' at 21:24 UTC on July 21, and the two docked at 21:35. ''Eagle''s ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit at 23:41. Just before the
Apollo 12
Apollo 12 (November 14–24, 1969) was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Pete Conra ...
flight, it was noted that ''Eagle'' was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that ''Eagle'' orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface. In 2021, however, some calculations show that the lander may still be in orbit.
On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented:
Aldrin added:
Armstrong concluded:
On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg was later thanked by Armstrong.
Splashdown and quarantine
![Splashdown 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Splashdown_3.jpg)
The aircraft carrier , under the command of Captain (United States O-6), Captain Carl J. Seiberlich, was selected as the primary recovery ship (PRS) for Apollo 11 on June 5, replacing its sister ship, the Landing platform helicopter, LPH , which had recovered Apollo 10 on May 26. ''Hornet'' was then at her home port of Long Beach, California. On reaching Pearl Harbor on July 5, ''Hornet'' Embarkation, embarked the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters of HSC-4, HS-4, a unit which specialized in recovery of Apollo spacecraft, specialized divers of Underwater Demolition Team, UDT Detachment Apollo, a 35-man NASA recovery team, and about 120 media representatives. To make room, most of ''Hornet''s air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a Boilerplate (spaceflight), boilerplate command module used for training.
On July 12, with Apollo 11 still on the launch pad, ''Hornet'' departed Pearl Harbor for the recovery area in the central Pacific, in the vicinity of . A presidential party consisting of Nixon, Borman, United States Secretary of State, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and National Security Advisor (United States), National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew to Johnston Atoll on Air Force One, then to the command ship USS Saipan (CVL-48), ''USS Arlington'' in Marine One. After a night on board, they would fly to ''Hornet'' in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. On arrival aboard ''Hornet'', the party was greeted by the United States Indo-Pacific Command, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Admiral (United States), Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and List of administrators and deputy administrators of NASA, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who flew to ''Hornet'' from Pago Pago in one of ''Hornet''s carrier onboard delivery aircraft.
Weather satellites were not yet common, but US Air Force Captain (United States O-3), Captain Hank Brandli had access to top-secret CORONA (satellite), spy satellite images. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area. Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule difficult, and strong upper-level winds which "would have ripped their parachutes to shreds" according to Brandli, posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission. Brandli alerted Navy Captain Willard S. Houston Jr., the commander of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Fleet Weather Center at Pearl Harbor, who had the required security clearance. On their recommendation, Rear admiral (United States), Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, commander of Manned Spaceflight Recovery Forces, Pacific, advised NASA to change the recovery area, each man risking his career. A new location was selected northeast.
This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, trajectory event P64 was followed by P67. For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip. In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead, P65 led directly to P67. The crew were also warned they would not be in a full-lift (heads-down) attitude when they entered P67.
The first program's acceleration subjected the astronauts to ; the second, to .
Before dawn on July 24, ''Hornet'' launched four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 Tracers. Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon. At 16:44 UTC (05:44 local time) ''Columbia''s drogue parachutes were deployed. This was observed by the helicopters. Seven minutes later ''Columbia'' struck the water forcefully east of Wake Island, south of Johnston Atoll, and from ''Hornet'',
at . with seas and winds at from the east were reported under broken clouds at with visibility of at the recovery site. Reconnaissance aircraft flying to the original splashdown location reported the conditions Brandli and Houston had predicted.
During splashdown, ''Columbia'' landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to prevent it from drifting. More divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and positioned rafts for astronaut extraction.
The divers then passed biological isolation garments (BIGs) to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site. The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and ''Columbia'' wiped with Povidone-iodine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board ''Hornet''. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk.
After touchdown on ''Hornet'' at 17:53 UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the to the Mobile quarantine facility (MQF), where they would begin the Earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and
Apollo 14
Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at s ...
, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life, and the quarantine process dropped. Nixon welcomed the astronauts back to Earth. He told them: "[A]s a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."
After Nixon departed, ''Hornet'' was brought alongside the ''Columbia'', which was lifted aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a Dolly (trailer), dolly and moved next to the MQF. It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. ''Hornet'' returned to Pearl Harbor, where the MQF was loaded onto a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center. The astronauts arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 10:00 UTC on July 28. ''Columbia'' was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. It was then taken to Hickham Air Force Base, from whence it was flown to Houston in a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, reaching the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 30.
In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol, the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on ''Hornet'', and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. On August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki), and on ''Columbia'' itself. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study.
Celebrations
![Apollo 11 ticker tape parade 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Apollo_11_ticker_tape_parade_1.jpg)
On August 13, the three astronauts rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees.
On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official state dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger and his predecessor, Earl Warren, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. Nixon and Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The three astronauts spoke before a joint session of the United States Congress, joint session of Congress on September 16, 1969. They presented two US flags, one to the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives and the other to the United States Senate, Senate, that they had carried with them to the surface of the Moon. The flag of American Samoa on Apollo 11 is on display at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa.
This celebration began a 38-day world tour that brought the astronauts to 22 foreign countries and included visits with the leaders of many countries.
The crew toured from September 29 to November 5.
Many nations honored the first human Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins.
Legacy
Cultural significance
![Land on the Moon 7 21 1969-repair](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Land_on_the_Moon_7_21_1969-repair.jpg)
Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. In Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing, Kennedy's speech flashed on the screen, followed by the words "TASK ACCOMPLISHED, July 1969".
The success of Apollo 11 demonstrated the United States' technological superiority;
and with the success of Apollo 11, America had won the
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
.
New phrases permeated into the English language. "If they can send a man to the Moon, why can't they ...?" became a common saying following Apollo 11. Armstrong's words on the lunar surface also spun off various parodies.
While most people celebrated the accomplishment, disenfranchised Americans saw it as a symbol of the divide in America, evidenced by protesters led by Ralph Abernathy outside of Kennedy Space Center the day before Apollo 11 launched. NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, Thomas Paine met with Abernathy at the occasion, both hoping that the space program can spur progress also in other regards, such as poverty in the US.
Paine was then asked, and agreed, to host protesters as spectators at the launch,
and Abernathy, awestruck by the spectacle, prayed for the astronauts.
Racial and financial inequalities frustrated citizens who wondered why money spent on the Apollo program was not spent taking care of humans on Earth. A poem by Gil Scott-Heron called "Whitey on the Moon" (1970) illustrated the racial inequality in the United States that was highlighted by the Space Race.
The poem starts with:
Twenty percent of the world's population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. While Apollo 11 sparked the interest of the world, the follow-on Apollo missions did not hold the interest of the nation.
One possible explanation was the shift in complexity. Landing someone on the Moon was an easy goal to understand; lunar geology was too abstract for the average person. Another is that Kennedy's goal of landing humans on the Moon had already been accomplished. A well-defined objective helped Project Apollo accomplish its goal, but after it was completed it was hard to justify continuing the lunar missions.
While most Americans were proud of their nation's achievements in space exploration, only once during the late 1960s did the Gallup Poll indicate that a majority of Americans favored "doing more" in space as opposed to "doing less". By 1973, 59 percent of those polled favored cutting spending on space exploration. The Space Race had been won, and Cold War tensions were easing as the US and Soviet Union entered the era of détente. This was also a time when inflation was rising, which put pressure on the government to reduce spending. What saved the space program was that it was one of the few government programs that had achieved something great. Drastic cuts, warned Caspar Weinberger, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, might send a signal that "our best years are behind us".
After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically. The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt. Mstislav Keldysh said in July 1969, "We are concentrating wholly on the creation of large satellite systems." It was revealed in 1989 that the Soviets had tried to send people to the Moon, but were unable due to technological difficulties. The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.
The Apollo 11 landing is referenced in the songs "Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins" by The Byrds on the 1969 album ''Ballad of Easy Rider (album), Ballad of Easy Rider'' and "Coon on the Moon" by Howlin' Wolf on the 1973 album ''The Back Door Wolf''.
Spacecraft
![Apollo 11 Columbia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Apollo_11_Columbia.png)
The Command Module Columbia, command module ''Columbia'' went on a tour of the United States, visiting 49 state capitals, the Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska. In 1971, it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and was displayed at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC.
[ It was in the central ''Milestones of Flight'' exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the ''Wright Flyer'', ''Spirit of St. Louis'', Bell X-1, North American X-15 and ''Friendship 7''.
''Columbia'' was moved in 2017 to the NASM Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to be readied for a four-city tour titled ''Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission''. This included Space Center Houston from October 14, 2017, to March 18, 2018, the Saint Louis Science Center from April 14 to September 3, 2018, the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from September 29, 2018, to February 18, 2019, and its last location at Museum of Flight in Seattle from March 16 to September 2, 2019.] Continued renovations at the Smithsonian allowed time for an additional stop for the capsule, and it was moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The ribbon cutting ceremony was on September 29, 2019.
For 40 years Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits were displayed in the museum's ''Apollo to the Moon'' exhibit, until it permanently closed on December 3, 2018, to be replaced by a new gallery which was scheduled to open in 2022. A special display of Armstrong's suit was unveiled for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019. The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar and the flotation bags are in the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, where they are on display along with a test lunar module.
The descent stage of the LM ''Eagle'' remains on the Moon. In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts. The remains of the ascent stage lie at an unknown location on the lunar surface, after being abandoned and impacting the Moon. The location is uncertain because ''Eagle'' ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time.
In March 2012 a team of specialists financed by Amazon.com, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the Rocketdyne F-1, F-1 engines from the S-IC stage that launched Apollo 11 into space. They were found on the Atlantic seabed using advanced sonar scanning. His team brought parts of two of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, a conservator discovered a serial number under the rust on one of the engines raised from the Atlantic, which NASA confirmed was from Apollo 11. The S-IVB third stage which performed Apollo 11's trans-lunar injection remains in a solar orbit near to that of Earth.
Moon rocks
The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. For safekeeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Most of the rocks are stored in nitrogen to keep them free of moisture. They are handled only indirectly, using special tools. Over 100 research laboratories worldwide conduct studies of the samples; approximately 500 samples are prepared and sent to investigators every year.
In November 1969, Nixon asked NASA to make up about 250 presentation Apollo 11 lunar sample displays for 135 nations, the fifty states of the United States and its possessions, and the United Nations. Each display included Moon dust from Apollo 11 and flags, including the one of the Soviet Union, taken along by Apollo 11. The rice-sized particles were four small pieces of Moon soil weighing about 50 mg and were enveloped in a clear acrylic button about as big as a Half dollar (United States coin), United States half dollar coin. This acrylic button magnified the grains of lunar dust. Nixon gave the Apollo 11 lunar sample displays as goodwill gifts in 1970.
Experiment results
The Passive Seismic Experiment ran until the command uplink failed on August 25, 1969. The downlink failed on December 14, 1969. , the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment remains operational.
Armstrong's camera
Armstrong's Hasselblad camera was thought to be lost or left on the Moon surface.
LM memorabilia
In 2015, after Armstrong died in 2012, his widow contacted the National Air and Space Museum to inform them she had found a white cloth bag in one of Armstrong's closets. The bag contained various items, which should have been left behind in the lunar module, including the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that had been used to capture images of the first Moon landing. The camera is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
Anniversary events
40th anniversary
On July 15, 2009, Life (magazine), Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by ''Life'' photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch. From July 16 to 24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred. It is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments. In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronized and released for the first time. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up an Adobe Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon.
On July 20, 2009, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with US President Barack Obama at the White House. "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey." On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson (politician), Bill Nelson and Florida Representative Alan Grayson.
A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing:
50th anniversary
On June 10, 2015, Congressman Bill Posey introduced resolution H.R. 2726 to the 114th session of the United States House of Representatives directing the United States Mint to design and sell commemorative coins in gold, silver and clad for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. On January 24, 2019, the Mint released the Apollo 11 Fiftieth Anniversary commemorative coins to the public on its website.
A documentary film, ''Apollo 11 (2019 film), Apollo 11'', with restored footage of the 1969 event, premiered in IMAX on March 1, 2019, and broadly in theaters on March 8.
The Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum and NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
sponsored the "Apollo 50 Festival" on the National Mall in Washington DC. The three day (July 18 to 20, 2019) outdoor festival featured hands-on exhibits and activities, live performances, and speakers such as Adam Savage and NASA scientists.
As part of the festival, a projection of the tall Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...
rocket was displayed on the east face of the tall Washington Monument from July 16 through the 20th from 9:30pm until 11:30pm (EDT). The program also included a 17-minute show that combined full-motion video projected on the Washington Monument to recreate the assembly and launch of the Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...
rocket. The projection was joined by a wide recreation of the Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...
countdown clock and two large video screens showing archival footage to recreate the time leading up to the moon landing. There were three shows per night on July 19–20, with the last show on Saturday, delayed slightly so the portion where Armstrong first set foot on the Moon would happen exactly 50 years to the second after the actual event.
On July 19, 2019, the Google Doodle paid tribute to the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, complete with a link to an animated YouTube video with voiceover by astronaut Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
.
Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong's sons were hosted by President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
Films and documentaries
* ''Footprints on the Moon (1969 film), Footprints on the Moon'', a 1969 documentary film by Bill Gibson and Barry Coe, about the Apollo 11 mission
* ''Moonwalk One'', a 1971 documentary film by Theo Kamecke
* ''Apollo 11: As it Happened'', a 1994 six-hour documentary on ABC News' coverage of the event
* ''Apollo 11 (2019 film), Apollo 11'', a 2019 documentary film by Todd Douglas Miller with restored footage of the 1969 event
* ''Chasing the Moon (2019 film), Chasing the Moon'', a July 2019 PBS three-night six-hour documentary, directed by Robert Stone (director), Robert Stone, examined the events leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. An accompanying book of the same name was also released.
* ''8 Days: To the Moon and Back'', a PBS and BBC Studios 2019 documentary film by Anthony Philipson re-enacting major portions of the Apollo 11 mission using mission audio recordings, new studio footage, NASA and news archives, and computer-generated imagery.
See also
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* Moon landing conspiracy theories
References
Notes
Citations
In some of the following sources, times are shown in the format ''hours:minutes:seconds'' (e.g. 109:24:15), referring to the mission's Ground Elapsed Time (GET), based on the official launch time of July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC (000:00:00 GET).
Sources
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External links
"Apollo 11 transcripts"
a
Spacelog
Apollo 11 in real time
Multimedia
* —Remastered videos of the original landing.
Dynamic timeline of lunar excursion
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera
*
*
Apollo 11 Restored EVA Part 1
(1h of restored footage)
''The New York Times'', Interactive, July 18, 2019
"Coverage of the Flight of Apollo 11"
provided by Todd Kosovich for RadioTapes.com. Radio station recordings (airchecks) covering the flight of Apollo 11.
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Apollo 11,
Buzz Aldrin
Neil Armstrong
Michael Collins (astronaut)
Apollo program missions
1969 on the Moon
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Crewed missions to the Moon