LEFT: A rare image of astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin together, erecting the American flag on the lunar surface. Armstrong, stands on the left at the flag’s staff. Aldrin is at right. The picture was taken from film exposed by the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera (DAC) which was mounted in the lunar module (LM). RIGHT: Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the lunar module (LM) Eagle during the Apollo 11 exravehicular activity (EVA). Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera.
spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11. The trip back to Earth was so uneventful that only one of four planned course corrections was required. Columbia entered the atmosphere of Earth at 12:35 p.m. EST on July 25, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. After arriving on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins were rushed into a quarantine chamber designed to protect the rest of the world from the remote possibility of contamination from
“Moon germs” or lunar microorganisms. Of all the otherworldly images of the Apollo 11 mission, one of the strangest is the photograph of the three astronauts, sealed inside their quarantine chamber, being greeted by Nixon, who was aboard the Hornet for the occasion. It is no exaggeration to say that, upon the return of the Apollo 11 astronauts, the entire world rejoiced. Even the Soviet Union, mirroring the astronaut’s goodwill gesture of enshrining Gagarin and Komarov on the Moon, offered its heartfelt congratulations. In fact, political leaders the world over viewed Apollo 11 as possibly the most historic success ever achieved by humankind, and it became a touchstone for optimists the world over: What couldn’t we do, if we could do this? Golda Meir, Israel’s new prime minister, publicly expressed the wish that Apollo 11’s achievement of the impossible could pave the way to the universal peace predicted by the prophets of Israel. Today many people, jaded by the intervening years of conflict and bloodshed around the world, would probably regard such a sentiment as naïve. But many thought the same thing of Kennedy on May 25, 1961, when he challenged Americans to find a way to the Moon. It is often pointed out – and it seems worth remembering – that Apollo 11, inspired in the 1950s by mortal fear of the Cold War enemy, resulted in perhaps the most powerful expression of hope ever shared by the people of the world.
New York City welcomes Apollo 11 crewmen in a showering of ticker tape down Broadway and Park avenues in a parade described as the largest in the city’s history. Pictured in the lead car, from the right, are astronauts Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin. The three astronauts teamed for the first manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
APOLLO 11 I 50 YEARS
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