From left are Armstrong, Michael Collins and Aldrin. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz. This is what it looked like, and what it felt like, to be a part of it for the three men who flew, and for the countless others on Earth who watched, and marveled, and willed the trio safely back home. Apollo 11s crew is pictured in May 1969, the month before the launch. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 successfully made the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Less than a decade after JFK’s bold proclamation, America did just that. In a sense, LIFE magazine shared in that triumph, as it had rigorously followed and reported on the soaring successes and the tragedies of America’s space program since well before President John Kennedy, in 1961, challenged the country to set foot on the moon. David Scott lands Apollo 15 Lunar Module Falcon on the Moon on July 30, 1971, seen from the perspective of the Lunar Module Pilot. Starts approximately 6200 feet from the surface. July 20, 1969, creating Tranquility Base. One look through the page spreads in this gallery (we recommend viewing all of the slides in “full screen” mode) makes it clear that, with this special issue, LIFE created not only the best first draft of history around the 1969 lunar landing, but produced an astonishingly comprehensive, coherent and, at times, poetic account of what LIFE’s editors called “history’s greatest exploration.”Īs Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins reached out for destiny all those years ago, 500 million people around the world watched in awe as the grainy black-and-white television footage beamed back to Earth from the cold surface of the moon and it seemed then, for America, that anything was possible. The first crewed lunar landing occurred on July 20, 1969, in the Apollo 11 LM-5 Eagle. Waiting two weeks was simply the price one paid for getting it right. Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC.For millions of people who witnessed the Apollo 11 mission, watching on television or following it on the radio as humanity improbably, literally walked on the moon, the event perhaps did not feel quite real until, more than two weeks later, LIFE published its definitive account of the epic journey. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins Go Through Customs and Sign Immigration Form After the First Moon Landing (1969) The Source Code for the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Mission Is Now Free on Github Stanley Kubrick’s Daughter Vivian Debunks the Age-Old Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1960s and ’70s that landed the first humans on the Moon. Read more about this extraordinary event at NASA and Kottke. In a post-flight press conference, Armstrong called the successful mission “a beginning of a new age,” and it was, though his optimism would seem almost quaint when a couple decades later, the U.S. Armstrong and Aldrin walked around and collected samples for two hours, then returned safely to Earth. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed on the moon. Just a little over eight years “since the flights of Gagarin and Shepard,” NASA writes, “followed quickly by President Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon before the decade is out,” it happened. On July 20, 1969, the nation witnessed what could easily be called NASA’s greatest triumph, the Apollo 11 moon landing, which not only really happened, but was broadcast live on CBS, with commentary by Walter Cronkite and former astronaut Wally Schirra and live audio from Mission Control in Houston and Buzz Aldrin himself, “whose job during the landing,” Jason Kottke writes, “was to keep an eye on the LM (lunar module)’s altitude and speed.” The contrast with our parents’ indelible memories of a televised space broadcast from seventeen years earlier could not be starker. “It was NASA’s darkest tragedy,” writes Elizabeth Howell at, an accident that “changed the space program forever.” Like millions of other schoolkids at the time we had been glued to the live broadcast, and became witnesses to horror. The conversation took a decidedly downbeat turn when a nationally televised moment we all remembered all too well came up: the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. During a recent dinner a few friends and I found ourselves reminiscing about formative moments in our collective youth.
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