NASA’s Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to set foot on the lunar surface, realizing humanity’s age-old dream. And effectively winning the space race for the United States, even though the Soviet Union had been first to land a spacecraft on the moon, in 1959.
Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin left the Apollo 11 command module (piloted by Michael Collins) in orbit and performed a landing in the lunar module Eagle. At 4:18 p.m. EDT, Armstrong announced to a watching and waiting world, “The Eagle has landed.”
Six and a half hours later, he stepped onto the powdery surface with the words that were heard as “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” In fact, he’d spoken the more logical “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” but the transmission clipped an all-important article. Aldrin soon followed Armstrong down the ladder to become the second man on the moon.
The mission was by no means a slam dunk. There was real fear that once on the lunar surface, the astronauts might end up marooned and beyond rescue. In fact, President Richard Nixon had a condolence speech ready to go in the event things turned out badly.
But things went as planned, and Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the command module, leaving behind a plaque inscribed with the words: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
Five more Apollo missions carried astronauts to the moon before the program ended, in 1972. (There would have been six, but Apollo 13 was a near disaster; see here.) The last human to leave his footprint on the moon was Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, on December 14, 1972.—TL