At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong,
240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion
people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap
for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in
a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint
session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should
commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of
landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." At the
time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space
developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal.
In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of
scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission,
testing the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and
spacecraft combination. Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at
Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out
during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and
Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in the fire.
Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968,
Apollo 7,
the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested
many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a moon journey and
landing. In December of the same year,
Apollo 8 took three astronauts to the dark side of the moon and back, and in March 1969
Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of
Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.
At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, with the world watching,
Apollo 11
took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin
Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old
civilian research pilot, was the commander of the mission. After
traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours,
Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module
Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the
Eagle
began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft
touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility.
Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a
famous message: "The
Eagle has landed."
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong
opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made his way down the lunar
module's ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his
progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions
watched in great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his
famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his
microphone and meant to be "that's one small step for
a man, one
giant leap for mankind." He then planted his left foot on the gray,
powdery surface, took a cautious step forward, and humanity had walked
on the moon.
"Buzz" Aldrin joined him on the moon's surface at 11:11 p.m., and
together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a
few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon
via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the
lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on
the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the
Eagle began its
ascent back to the command module. Among the items left on the surface
of the moon was a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth
first set foot on the moon--July 1969 A.D--We came in peace for all
mankind."
At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22
Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.
There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by,
Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the
Apollo 17
mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo
program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor, involving an
estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists, and costing
$24 billion (close to $100 billion in today's dollars). The expense was
justified by Kennedy's 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the moon, and
after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.
Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon
Twelve men have walked on the Moon – all American – eight of whom are
still alive. All of the landings took place between July 1969 and
December 1972 as part of the Apollo program.
|
Name |
Born |
Died |
Age at
first step |
Mission |
Lunar EVA dates |
Service |
Alma Mater |
| 01. |
Neil Armstrong |
August 5, 1930 |
August 25, 2012 (aged 82) |
38y 11m 15d |
Apollo 11 |
July 21, 1969[5] |
NASA[6] |
Purdue University, University of Southern California |
| 02. |
Buzz Aldrin |
January 20, 1930 (age 83) |
|
39y 6m 0d |
Air Force |
United States Military Academy, MIT |
| 03. |
Pete Conrad |
June 2, 1930 |
July 8, 1999 (aged 69) |
39y 5m 17d |
Apollo 12 |
November 19–20, 1969 |
Navy |
Princeton University |
| 04. |
Alan Bean |
March 15, 1932 (age 81) |
|
37y 8m 4d |
Navy |
University of Texas, Austin |
| 05. |
Alan Shepard |
November 18, 1923 |
July 21, 1998 (aged 74) |
47y 2m 18d |
Apollo 14 |
February 5–6, 1971 |
Navy |
United States Naval Academy |
| 06. |
Edgar Mitchell |
September 17, 1930 (age 82) |
|
40y 4m 19d |
Navy |
Carnegie Institute of Technology, United States Naval Academy, MIT |
| 07. |
David Scott |
June 6, 1932 (age 81) |
|
39y 1m 25d |
Apollo 15 |
July 31 – August 2, 1971 |
Air Force |
University of Michigan (freshman year, and later, an honorary doctorate), United States Military Academy, MIT |
| 08. |
James Irwin |
March 17, 1930 |
August 8, 1991 (aged 61) |
41y 4m 14d |
Air Force |
United States Naval Academy, University of Michigan |
| 09. |
John W. Young |
September 24, 1930 (age 82) |
|
41y 6m 28d |
Apollo 16 |
April 21–23, 1972 |
Navy |
Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 10. |
Charles Duke |
October 3, 1935 (age 77) |
|
36y 6m 18d |
Air Force |
United States Naval Academy, MIT |
| 11. |
Eugene Cernan |
March 14, 1934 (age 79) |
|
38y 9m 7d |
Apollo 17 |
December 11–14, 1972 |
Navy |
Purdue University, Naval Postgraduate School |
| 12. |
Harrison Schmitt |
July 3, 1935 (age 78) |
|
37y 5m 8d |
NASA |
Caltech, University of Oslo (exchange), Harvard University |
