Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.
Six hours after landing at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining), Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him.
He was shortly joined by “Buzz” Aldrin, and the two astronauts spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and returned 46 pounds of lunar rocks. After their historic walks on the Moon, they successfully docked with the Command Module “Columbia,” in which Michael Collins was patiently orbiting the cold but no longer lifeless Moon.
1 comment:
I tear up whenever I watch the landing video. It's just awesome.
As an aside, you might know this - I see the < 30 seconds of fuel left thing, but from what I've read on the ALSJ, the time calls were until the "bingo" point, at which point there was 20s fuel left (probably) and they had to land or abort damn fast. Is that true?
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