History of the 1st Moon Landing: Apollo 11–51 Years Ago
Fifty-one years ago today, at 3:17 Eastern Time, July 20, 1969, the first human stepped out of the Apollo 11 lunar module onto the moon. With the immortal words of the 38-year-old Neil Armstrong:
“That’s one small step for (a) man,
one giant leap for mankind.”
…the first man in history began an excursion on the moon that lasted over two and a half hours.
Five hundred million people watched it on television. Everyone I knew watched it.
The Mission
Eight years previously, in May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy in his special State of the Union message had uttered these galvanizing words:
“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “Space… the final frontier… her mission…” It was spoken first in September of 1966. But John Kennedy’s 29-word statement in 1969 first captured the sense of “mission” more clearly and memorably than Americans had commonly heard before.
The Apollo mission would send two Americans to the moon’s surface and return them safely.
