Apollo Moon History

Expedition to the Moon The Apollo space missions during the 1960’s included some of the bravest men of modern time. These men explored the unknown bounds of space. Perhaps the most famous Apollo mission was Apollo 11, which was the first flight to land on the moon. These men landed on the moon on July 20th which happens to be my birthday. A famous picture of this event is the placing of the American flag on the moon. This mission included thousands of men and woman working on the space craft and three passengers: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins. On July 16, 1969, the three brave men gathered their seats on the space craft to prepare for lift off. The launching locations of this famous flight was in Cape Kennedy, Florida

The computer on the Eagle was about as strong as a modern day digital watch. Armstrong had to manually override the system on decent because the landing craft was headed straight for a “rugged crater the size of a football field” (Potter). Also the computer sounded alarms on the final seconds of the decent. The NASA team back on Earth held its breath knowing how dangerous and risky this part of the mission was. When the craft landed on the moon there was only thirty seconds of fuel left for decent ("Apollo 11 Mission Overview."). Armstrong announced landing just seventeen seconds before he would have been told to abort mission and take the landing craft back to the main ship

Together they took several photographs, gathered rock samples, and left an American flag on the moon. Just before reentering the Eagle the two men left a plaque that reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon-July 1969 A.D-We came in peace for all mankind.”("Apollo 11."). All in all, Armstrong and Aldrin explored the moon for about two and half hours and collected around forty-seven pounds of lunar samples (Dismukes).

These three men are perhaps some of the bravest men of modern time. They accomplished something that had never been done before while not knowing the full risks involved. The computer on the space ship was not much more powerful than a modern day watch and still these men were able to travel to the moon and back. Even though the computer sounded alarms and the fuel was almost empty, they did not turn back. These three men on this mission all deserve honor and respect, because they truly helped start the space exploration