A milestone in human history was reached on July 20, 1969 (U.S. Eastern Daylight Time), when two American astronauts, Mr. Neil Armstrong and Colonel Edwin Aldrin, became the first men to set foot on the moon, successfully accomplishing the objective of the Apollo 11 mission.
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The lunar landing, which was made in the Sea of Tranquillity and is described below, marked the culmination of eight years of intensive effort by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, involving the expenditure of $24,000,000,000, since the late President Kennedy gave the directive in May 1961 that the United States should land a man on the moon and bring him back "before this decade is out."
The three astronauts of the historic Apollo 11 moon flight were Mr. Neil A. Armstrong (38), a civilian and a former aeronautical research pilot, who was in command of the mission as Flight Commander; Colonel Edwin E. Aldrin (39), who was Lunar Module Pilot; and Lieut.-Colonel Michael Collins (38), who was Command Module Pilot.
A little over 6 1/2 hours after the landing on the moon, Mr. Armstrong emerged through the hatch of "Eagle" and stepped slowly down a nine-rung ladder on to the lunar surface, taking several minutes to descend. At the historic moment--10.56 p.m. on July 20 (3.56 a.m. B.S.T. July 21)--when he was about to become the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong said: "I'm going to step off the LM now. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
After carefully testing the lunar surface and reporting to mission control at Houston, Mr. Armstrong started to collect samples of moon-surface material with a "contingency sampler"--a 25-inch aluminium handler with a bag at the end, somewhat similar to a butterfly-net. Colonel Aldrin, who had meanwhile been taking cine-pictures of Mr. Armstrong through the window of the Lunar Module, then descended in his turn to the surface of the moon at 11.14 p.m., 18 minutes after Neil Armstrong. Before his descent Colonel Aldrin lowered a camera down to Mr. Armstrong, who took pictures of Edwin Aldrin descending the ladder on to the surface of the moon. Mr. Armstrong then moved to the storage compartment in the descent stage of "Eagle," pulled out a TV camera, and placed it about 30 feet away from the module; with this camera pictures were obtained of all the astronauts' subsequent activities while they were on the moon.
During the 2 1/2 hours in which they remained on the lunar surface (the "moon walk") Mr. Armstrong and Colonel Aldrin unveiled the plaque, signed by the three Apollo 11 astronauts and by President Nixon, the text of which is given on unfurled and planted on the moon a large American flag made of wire-backed nylon and measuring three feet by five feet; erected a solar wind screen (a NASA experiment), a banner-like sheet of thin aluminium foil to collect particles from the solar wind; installed a seismometer to register moonquakes and transmit the information obtained back to Earth; placed a laser reflector to be used for very precise measurements of the moon's orbital and rotational motions; and scooped up about 80 lb. of moon rock and moon soil, which was stowed in special containers to be brought back to Earth.
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