Desk Report,
Did Neil Armstrong really go to the moon five decades ago?
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States. Addressing a special joint session of the US Congress, he said, “Our goal should be to land a man on the moon before the end of this decade and return him safely to Earth.”
Did Neil Armstrong really go to the moon five decades ago?
When Kennedy said these words, the United States was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the race to conquer space. Kennedy’s bold call during the Cold War era resonated widely among Americans. Eight years later, on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong, after setting foot on the moon for the first time, exclaimed, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
At that time, billions of people on Earth, 240,000 miles away, were listening to these words. The historic scene was being broadcast on television. Armstrong was accompanied by two other astronauts—Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins—on the mission. After John F. Kennedy’s speech in 1961, the US space agency NASA worked for five years to launch a mission to the moon. Later, in 1966, a team of international scientists and engineers operated an experimental unmanned spacecraft for the first time for the Apollo mission. Through this, NASA was mainly testing the ability of a rocket and a spacecraft to operate together. But the following year, a terrible accident occurred. On January 27, 1967, a fire broke out during the preparation for the experimental launch of a manned spacecraft. Three astronauts were killed. This incident occurred at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Even after the accident, NASA and its employees did not stop. They continued to work.
In October 1968, Apollo 7 was successfully launched. This was the first manned Apollo mission. This mission tested many of the complex technologies necessary for going to the moon. Then in December, Apollo 8, carrying three astronauts, flew around the dark side of the moon, returning to Earth and orbiting the moon 10 times.
In March 1969, Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time from Earth’s orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10 orbited the moon in a fully prepared Apollo spacecraft. This mission was a rehearsal or preparation mission before the main mission to land on the moon in July.
The historic journey begins
Finally, the moment of the final mission arrived. Apollo 11 launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969. People around the world were watching on television.
There were three astronauts in that spacecraft—Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Neil Armstrong was the commander of the mission. Apollo 11 entered lunar orbit on July 19, after traveling about 240,000 miles in 76 hours.
The next day, on July 20, at 1:46 a.m., the Lunar Module ‘Eagle’ carrying Armstrong and Aldrin separated from the main command module. Collins remained in the main command module. Two hours later, Eagle began its journey to land on the moon’s surface. At 4:18 p.m., Eagle successfully landed in the ‘Sea of Tranquility’ region in the southeast of the moon. Armstrong then radioed the control room in Houston, saying, ‘Eagle has landed.’
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of schedule, Neil Armstrong opened the door to Apollo 11’s Lunar Module. He began descending the stairs step by step. The television camera installed in the module captured the moment and sent it to Earth. Billions of people watched this historic scene with excitement.
At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong first set foot on the moon’s surface. At 11:11 p.m., Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon alongside Armstrong. Together, they took photographs of the lunar surface, planted an American flag, conducted some scientific experiments, and spoke to the President of the United States through the control room in Houston. Of course, John F. Kennedy was no longer alive at the time. Richard Nixon was the President of the United States.
At 1:11 a.m. on July 21 (the night of July 20), the two astronauts returned to the Lunar Module, closed the door, and went to sleep. At 1:54 a.m., the Eagle module departed for the waiting Command Module in orbit.
Armstrong and Aldrin left a commemorative plaque on the moon’s surface. It read, “July, 1969. Man from planet Earth first set foot on the surface of the moon. We come with a message of peace to all mankind.”
At 5:35 p.m., Eagle successfully returned to the Command Module. Armstrong and Aldrin rejoined Michael Collins. Then, at 12:56 PM on July 22, Apollo 11 left for Earth. They landed safely in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 PM on July 24.
Conspiracy theories and counterarguments
A few years after the successful human mission to the moon, some people began to claim that the event was a hoax. They claimed that the US government had staged such an event to win the space race with the Soviets. Such conspiracy theories spread rapidly in the mid-1970s.
These theories claim that the human walk on the moon was actually a big hoax! The US government staged a fake moon landing to win the space race with the Soviet Union. Although scientists have repeatedly proven this claim wrong, this theory still persists in the belief of many people today. Some such conspiracy theories are:
