The
first successful manned mission to the
Moon will always remain a profoundly heroic page in the
human history. In 1969, with the space technologies being still
rather primitive, but the exploration spirit and scientific
curiosity burning high and bright, the USA started its dramatic
Apollo lunar program. On July 20th of 1969, the first in the
history of the humankind manned flight to land on another celestial
body was accomplished with a fascinating triumph. Astronaut
Neil Armstrong became the first man from the planet Earth to
step on the surface of the Moon. Let us have a closer look at
the courageous figure of the first man on the Moon and the details
of that unprecedented lunar venture.
Apollo
11, launched on July 16 of 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center,
happened to be the fifth mission of the American Apollo program
on the manned exploration of the Moon. That was also the third
manned flight towards the Moon. The crew on board of Apollo 11
included commander Neil Alden Armstrong, lunar module pilot Edwin
Eugene Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins. Almost
a million people were witnessing the spacecraft launch from the
nearby beaches and highways. Many more - hundred of millions,
including American President Nixon, were anxiously watching that
grand event on TV.
By
July 11th, Apollo had reached the orbit of the Moon and started
preparing for the historical lunar
landing. The convenient, smooth and flat, landing site in
the area of the Sea of Tranquility had been found by the earlier
missions of Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5. The descending of the lunar
module Eagle carrying Armstrong and Aldrin was controlled by computers
from the NASA Mission Control Center in Texas, but their guiding
was complicated by numerous reported program alarms and was even
threatening to land the module on an unsafe rocky spot far from
the planned place of landing. Neil Armstrong had to quickly react
to prevent a disaster. He took manual control of their lunar module
and, at last, at 20:17 UTC of the 20th of July, the first manned
mission successfully landed on the Moon. They only had 30 seconds
of fuel left to complete the landing!
In
six and a half hours after the Eagle had descended, Neil Armstrong,
for the first time in the history of the humankind, stepped onto
the surface of the Moon. His lunar words "That's one small
step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" became famous
all over the world. Later, he was followed by Aldrin. Despite
some technical complications, hundreds of millions of people on
the Earth were able to see the first B/W images of ghostly-looking
people in spacesuits moving on the surface of the Moon.
For
the remaining hours that the piloted lunar module spent on the
Moon's surface, the astronauts planted on the Moon the US flag
and left a mission patch with various Earth messages. They also
were experimenting with getting adjusted to the lunar gravity
and balance by trying different step methods, were photographing,
writing down their impressions and observations, and drilling
the core layer of the lunar surface to obtain samples of the Moon's
soil. More than 48 pounds of lunar material were collected and
loaded into the module. The astronauts were working so hard and
even got a warning from the Control Center to slow down, as their
metabolic rate elevated to a dangerously high level. Having completed
their dramatic mission, both astronauts were able to safely return
the Eagle back to the lunar orbit. Several hours later, Apollo
11 with the three courageous astronauts on board was on its safe
way back to the Earth, which they reached on July 24th. The unprecedented,
first manned voyage to a surface of another cosmic body had been
accomplished with a stunning triumph.
By
the time of the heroic mission of Apollo 11th, the first man to
step onto the Moon, flight's commander Neil Armstrong, had already
achieved a long and glorious list of accomplishments. Born on
August 5,1930 in Ohio, Armstrong got his Bachelor's Degree in
aeronautical engineering in 1955, and later completed a Master's
degree in aerospace engineering. Until 1952, Armstrong had served
as a naval aviator with participation in the Korean War, in the
course of which he was shot down while piloting his F9F Panther,
but was able to safely return the plane to a friendly territory.
He took place in almost eighty flight missions of the Korean War
and was awarded a number of combat medals.
Later,
Armstrong became an experimental test pilot outside of the military
forces, and in the 1962 was chosen to join the NASA
as a pilot-engineer for future space voyages. The astronauts corps
selection process was kept secret from the general public, but
later it was announced that Armstrong was appointed the first
civilian pilot of the NASA space
program. Prior to the mission of Apollo 11, Armstrong had been
a back-up pilot in the lunar Gemini missions, until, finally,
he was selected to participate in the Apollo program and become
the first man to walk on the lunar surface. After that historical
flight, Armstrong, together with his fellow crew members, was
awarded a special Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Soon
after the Apollo flight, Armstrong announced his decision not
to fly into space anymore. He had remained with NASA until 1971,
when he became a professor of aerospace engineering in the University
of Cincinnati. Within the period of 1985 - 1986, Neil Armstrong
worked on the National Commission on Space and took part of its
daily activities, including the investigation of the tragic explosion
of Challenger in 1986. Currently, Neil Armstrong lives in Ohio;
he has been married twice since 1956, with three children, one
of whom died due to a brain cancer. Armstrong's only authorized
official biography was written by James A. Michener in 2005.
When
Neil Armstrong
was asked by journalists about his thoughts on that historical
first manned voyage to the Moon, the astronaut admitted that he
had not had much hope of both landing on the Moon and returning
back to the Earth. He said that the members of the crew had been
profoundly ecstatic and actually surprised that they had managed
to successfully accomplish the most daring venture of the humankind
- sending the first humans to walk on the Moon...
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