apollo 11 trip back to earth

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Apollo 11 Moon Landing Timeline: From Liftoff to Splashdown

By: Dave Roos

Updated: March 27, 2023 | Original: June 24, 2019

Apollo 11

On July 20, 1969, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy threw down the Cold War gauntlet and announced the ambitious goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth ,” NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag in the dusty lunar soil.

Below is a timeline of the historic Apollo 11 flight from launch to splashdown.

Apollo 11 Liftoff

Mission Time 00:00:00: Apollo 11 Launches

To overcome the Earth’s orbital gravity, NASA required a rocket 100 times more powerful than the Mercury boosters that launched the first American astronaut into orbit in 1961. The three-stage Saturn V was as big as a Navy destroyer, packed 7.5 million pounds of thrust and could catapult the Apollo 11 astronauts to a maximum velocity of 25,000 mph.

To fuel all that power, the Saturn V was filled to the brim with nearly a million gallons of kerosene, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Michael Neufeld, a senior curator in the space history department of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, says that the ignition of the Saturn V boosters was the first of many tense moments on Apollo 11.

“If the Saturn V blew up on or near the launch pad, it would have the force of a small nuclear weapon,” says Neufeld.

02:44:16: One Loop Around Earth, Then Moon-Bound

After firing and jettisoning two of the Saturn V’s three engines, the spacecraft entered Earth’s orbit at nearly 120 miles above the surface. After one swing around the planet, the third-stage J-2 rocket ignited, hurling the Apollo astronauts out of near-Earth orbit and on a trajectory toward the moon.

Apollo 11 Mission

03:24:03: Vessels Rearrange in Space

Next came a truly tricky dance move. Aside from the Saturn V boosters, the Apollo 11 hardware consisted of three vessels: the Lunar Module (LM), codenamed “Eagle,” to transport two astronauts to and from the moon’s surface; the Command Module (CM), codenamed “Columbia,” where all three astronauts hung out during the journey; and the Service Module, which held the propulsion and support systems. (When the Command Module was attached to the Service Module, it was called the CSM.)

To get the vessels in the right order for lunar orbit and landing, the CSM had to eject from inside the tip of the stage three rocket, pull a 180-degree turn and dock head-first with the top of the LM—all while hurtling through space at nearly 20,000 mph. 

Once attached, the Apollo 11 spacecraft separated from the Saturn V for good and the Apollo 11 astronauts began their three-day journey across the 238,000-mile expanse between the Earth and the moon.

75:49:50: Entering Moon's Orbit

Once separated from the Saturn V, the Apollo spacecraft was at the mercy of the Service Module engine for mid-course corrections and for the critical maneuver of slipping into the moon’s weaker gravitational orbit. 

This last move, known as lunar orbit insertion, went off without a hitch, swinging the astronauts around the moon at 62 miles above the lunar surface.

Apollo 11

100:39:53: Armstrong Maneuvers Descent 

During the spacecraft’s second pass around the moon, Mission Commander Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Aldrin moved from the CSM into the snug confines of the LM to prepare for detachment, leaving Command Module Pilot Michael Collins to anxiously wait and circle in orbit.

Next came the “powered descent” of the LM, what Neufeld calls “the most critical and dangerous part of the flight.” After separating from the CSM, Armstrong and Aldrin piloted the 32,000-pound LM for two hours toward the lunar surface. At the last minute, with fuel supplies running dangerously low, Armstrong realized that the computer’s auto-landing program was dropping them in the middle of a boulder-strewn crater.

“In what’s become a famous moment,” says Neufeld, “Armstrong took over manual control and began maneuvering the spacecraft forward faster so it would skate over the crater to a clear spot beyond it.”

102:45:40: 'The Eagle Has Landed'

Armstrong, a veteran test pilot, remained cool and collected even as warning alarms blared in the cramped cabin and Mission Control announced only 30 seconds of fuel left in the reserves.

“I think Armstrong was comfortable,” says Neufeld. “It was a tense landing, but he knew he could make it.”

Standing side-by-side and peering out small triangular windows, Armstrong and Aldrin brought the LM to a gentle rest and cut the engines. “The Eagle has landed,” Armstrong reported to a white-knuckled Mission Control.

“Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground,” responded fellow astronaut Charlie Duke in Houston. “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

1st Men on the Moon

109:07:33: Armstrong, Aldrin on the Moon: 'That's One Small Step...'

As commander, Armstrong had the privilege of being the first astronaut to set foot on the moon. As he stepped off the ladder onto the lunar surface, Armstrong famously radioed back to Earth, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." (While Armstrong said " a man..." most heard "small step for man.") Aldrin followed Armstrong down the ladder.

The two men spent the next two hours taking photographs, recording their impressions of the landscape, collecting piles of moon rocks and soil specimens, and deploying a package of scientific experiments, some which would stay on the moon after they left. Those included a seismograph for measuring “moonquakes” and the Laser Ranging Retroreflector for measuring the precise distance of the moon from Earth.

124:22:01: A Meal, a Nap, Then Lift-Off From the Moon

After a meal and a few hours of sleep, it was time for Armstrong and Aldrin to rejoin Collins and the CSM in lunar orbit. Neufeld says that this was another nail-biter moment for folks like him watching at home.

“Lift-off made me nervous,” says Neufeld. “There’s only one ascent engine and it’s got to light. It’s the only way to get back alive.”

The prospect of Armstrong and Aldrin being stranded on the moon was real enough that President Richard Nixon and his speechwriter William Safire had a condolence speech prepared, which began, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”

Apollo 11 ascent

128:03:00: Docking With Command Module

Thankfully, the ascent engine ignited perfectly and Armstrong and Aldrin cruised into lunar orbit where they pulled off yet another tricky maneuver, docking with the CSM in mid-flight. Armstrong, who had performed the very first successful space docking ever during Gemini 8, proved more than capable for the job.

The three-man crew reunited in the CSM, jettisoned the LM for good and set course for home.

195:07:15: Re-entry into Earth’s Atmosphere

After firing its engines one last time to enter Earth’s orbit, the Service Module was ditched and the three astronauts braced for re-entry inside the cone-shaped Command Module. 

This would be the final test for the Apollo 11 crew and the thousands of engineers and test pilots who had made this moment possible. The capsule had to enter the atmosphere at a razor-precise angle.

“When you hit the atmosphere at 24,000 mph, it creates a hell of a fireball,” says Neufeld. “If they came in too steep, they would heat up too fast and spacecraft would burn up. If they came in too shallow, the capsule would skip off the atmosphere like a rock on a pond.”

After a breathless communication blackout of three minutes, Armstrong signaled a successful reentry and the recovery ships made the first visual contact of the capsule with its parachutes deployed.

Apollo 11 Crew

195:18:35: Splashdown

The Apollo 11 mission concluded exactly eight days, three hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds after launch with a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean, about 800 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii and 12 miles from the recovery ship, the USS Hornet.

The three astronauts emerged from the banged up CM capsule wearing biological contamination suits for fear that they brought back toxic moon bacteria. They would remain inside a mobile medical quarantine facility (resembling a modified Airstream trailer) for 21 days before being cleared to return to their families.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

HISTORY Vault: Moon Landing: The Lost Tapes

On the 50th anniversary of the historic moon landing, this documentary unearths lost tapes of the Apollo 11 astronauts, and explores the dangers and challenges of the mission to the moon.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

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The first crewed Moon landing

Apollo 11 was the first mission to land humans on the Moon. It fulfilled a 1961 goal set by President John F. Kennedy to send American astronauts to the surface and return them safely to Earth before the end of the decade. On 21 July 1969 at 02:56:15 UTC, Neil Armstrong pressed his left foot onto the Moon and said, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind," as 530 million people watched live on television.

The mission returned 20 kilograms of rock and soil to Earth, and paved the way for 5 additional Moon landings that greatly advanced the field of lunar science.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins began their journey with a launch aboard a Saturn V rocket on the morning of 16 July 1969. Three hours later, their rocket's upper stage blasted them out of Earth orbit towards the Moon. They arrived 3 days later on 19 July and entered an initial lunar orbit of 111 by 306 kilometers. A second engine burn lowered their orbit to 100 by 113 kilometers.

On 20 July, Armstrong and Aldrin boarded their lunar module, nicknamed Eagle, and undocked it from the command module, where Collins remained. Almost the same as in the Apollo 10 rehearsal 2 months earlier, the astronauts fired Eagle’s descent engine, dropping to an orbit with a low point of 14.5 kilometers. Roughly an hour later, as the duo approached the Sea of Tranquility, they began a final powered descent to the surface.

Armstrong and Aldrin had to overcome several last-minute challenges during the landing sequence. A series of computer alarms that the crew had not seen in simulations prompted a call to Mission Control for guidance, and flight controllers advised the crew they could safely proceed. Then, Armstrong saw that the lunar module computer was guiding them toward a boulder field that was later determined to be ejecta from West Crater . Armstrong took semi-manual control of the lunar module to avoid the boulders, and then a smaller crater later named Little West, before finally landing with just 25 seconds' worth of fuel remaining.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed," Armstrong famously reported after landing. The official touchdown time was 20:17:39 UTC on 20 July 1969.

Safely on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin worked through a long checklist to ensure their spacecraft was healthy and that they would be able to lift off for the return home. The flight plan called for an optional 4-hour rest period to begin 2 hours after landing, which Armstrong and Aldrin opted to skip. It is often reported that the astronauts were too excited to rest; in reality, the rest period was an optional buffer in case Armstrong and Aldrin needed time to adapt to lunar gravity or had technical problems to work through.

EVA preparations officially began three and a half hours after landing. The lunar module hatch opened at 02:39:35 UTC on 21 July 1969, and 17 minutes later, at 02:56:15 UTC (22:56:15 EDT on 20 July 1969), Armstrong stepped off the lunar module's ladder and onto the surface.

Armstrong and Aldrin's single moonwalk lasted two and a half hours. During that time, they deployed science and engineering experiments , photographed their surroundings, displayed an American flag, read an inscription plaque, collected rock and soil samples for return to Earth, and spoke with President Richard Nixon. The astronauts verbally described their surroundings and progress for geologists, while cameras mounted inside and outside the lunar module documented some of their activities.

Landing Site

The Apollo 11 lunar module landing coordinates are 0.67416 degrees N, 23.47314 E. See here and here for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image analysis.

Armstrong and Aldrin shot roughly 125 frames during their EVA, all on magazine 40/S , using a Hasselblad 500 EL Data Camera . Maps and descriptions of all photos are available.

Science and engineering experiments

Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) : A seismometer that failed after 21 days, but provided useful initial data on lunar seismology for future Apollo missions.

The Lunar Dust Detector : Attached to the PSE, the dust detector measured the power output from a set of solar cells to determine how much dust was thrown on nearby science instruments by the lunar module ascent engine (and in the long term, from transient lunar dust).

Laser Ranging Retroreflector (LRR) : An array of small mirrors that, to this day, can be targeted by Earth-based lasers to measure the distance to the Moon. The LRR experiment has determined that the Moon is currently receding from Earth at 3.8 centimeters per year.

Solar Wind Composition Experiment : A small sheet of foil deployed and then retrieved for return to Earth, used to estimate the number of charged particles (solar wind) striking the surface.

Soil mechanics investigation : Specific experiments to investigate soil mechanics and the properties of the lunar surface. The investigation included the use of penetrometers—rods that measure the force required to penetrate to various soil depths—as well as the digging of small trenches and the collection of rocks, soil and core tubes.

After returning to the lunar module, Armstrong and Aldrin had been awake for 21 hours. The 2 astronauts slept fitfully, with Aldrin on the floor and Armstrong perched above him on the engine cowling using an improvised hammock to hold his legs off the ground. ( See here for a panorama of the inside of a lunar module ). The astronauts slept in their suits for warmth, as the cabin temperature dropped to 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16 Celsius).

At 17:54 UTC on 21 July, after a total of 21 hours and 36 minutes on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off in the lunar module's ascent stage. They rendezvoused with the command module in orbit roughly three and a half hours later, rejoined Collins in the command module, and jettisoned the lunar module. The next day, on 22 July, the crew fired their service module's engines to leave lunar orbit for their long coast back to Earth. They splashed down into the Pacific Ocean at 16:50:35 UTC on 24 July and were retrieved by the USS Hornet.

Onboard the Hornet, the crew entered a mobile quarantine facility to protect against the unlikely event that they had contracted dangerous pathogens on the lunar surface. The facility was transported back to Houston, arriving on 28 July. On 10 August, with the men showing no signs of illness 21 days after Armstrong and Aldrin's moonwalk, NASA released the crew.

Apollo 11 Timeline

"it has a stark beauty all its own." "magnificent desolation.".

—Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, respectively, on the surface of the Moon

Apollo 11 Cost

NASA estimated the following direct costs for Apollo 11. Full costs of the Apollo program can be found on the " How Much Did the Apollo Program Cost? " page.

Inflation adjusted to 2019 via NASA's New Start Index (NNSI). Source: "History of Manned Space Flight." February 1975. NASA Kennedy Space Center. Located in NASA HQ Historical Reference Collection, Washington, D.C. Record Number 18194. Box 1.

Project Apollo

Starting with Apollo 7 in 1968 and culminating with Apollo 17 in 1972, NASA launched 33 astronauts on 11 Apollo missions. Twelve humans walked on the Moon.

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Apollo 11 at 50: A Complete Guide to the Historic Moon Landing

Relive the drama!

On July 20, 1969, 600 million people watched with anxious excitement as Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. took their first steps on the moon's surface.

The first humans ever to leave footprints in the lunar regolith, Aldrin and Armstrong made history — and a permanent impression on the world — as they bravely ventured beyond Earth. This summer marks 50 years since Aldrin, Armstrong and Michael Collins made their daring journey to the moon.

But this historic achievement belongs to many more Americans than just this trio of astronauts: Behind the scenes, more than 400,000 people worked on the mission and made it possible for to land on the moon. All told, it was one of the greatest feats that we humans have ever pulled off. 

See our complete archive of Apollo 11 50th anniversary coverage here!

  • Relive Apollo 11 Moon Landing Mission in Real Time
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  • Events Celebrating Apollo 11 Moon Landing's 50th Anniversary

The mission, dubbed Apollo 11, was the climax of the Apollo program, which pushed human spaceflight forward faster than ever before. In October 1968, the first crewed flight of the Apollo program lifted off; less than a year later, Apollo 11 launched. Within just a few short years, a total of six missions landed 12 U.S. astronauts on the surface of the moon. A seemingly impossible goal, the first human landing on the moon was a major victory for the United States in the ongoing space race with Cold War rival the Soviet Union. 

Fifty years after the Apollo 11 mission, people around the globe are once again reflecting on and celebrating the moon landing, the odds that were stacked against it and how it continues to influence spaceflight.

Slideshow: How NASA's Apollo Astronauts Went to the Moon

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We choose to go to the moon 

"We choose to go to the moon," U.S. President John. F. Kennedy famously declared in 1962 to a captivated crowd at Rice Stadium in Texas.

This speech invoked a new urgency in the space race, which had been going on between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The two Cold War rivals were both determined to outdo the other and land humans on the lunar surface first. 

The U.S. efforts in this contest included two predecessors to Project Apollo: Project Mercury , which began in 1958, and Project Gemini , which followed in 1961. But until the moon landing itself, the Soviet space program was ahead overall, with successful missions including Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit Earth, and Luna 2, the first space probe to touch the moon.

"I think in America, at least, there [was] a feeling of a great lack of self-confidence, a feeling of 'We are falling behind,'" Asif Siddiqi, a space historian at Fordham University in New York, told Space.com. "Pretty much every single major event in the space race in the early days was a triumph of Soviet space achievement ."

After World War II, Siddiqi explained, the U.S. was feeling on top as the country's economy grew. "There's an expectation that if anything's going to happen in science and technology, America's going to be first," Siddiqi said. But this expectation was not realized in the space race, and the Soviet Union beat the U.S. to space milestones again and again.

So, in 1961, Kennedy decided to take charge and proposed to Congress the goal of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the decade. (The idea of a moon mission was first discussed during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, but it's most strongly associated with Kennedy's declaration.) This seemingly impossible task quickly became the ultimate goal of the Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo. 

Kennedy's famous speech at Rice Stadium the next year inspired Americans to dream big. The announcement lit a fire under the teams at NASA to complete the task on a seemingly impossible timeline. 

But the ambitious goal required an equally ambitious budget. The U.S. government ended up allocating $25 billion in 1960s dollars to the Apollo program, or about 2.5% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time annually for approximately 10 years. 

Project Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, even though NASA accomplished Kennedy's goal in 1969. Although other astronauts visited the lunar surface after Apollo 11, the triumphant first landing remains a pinnacle in spaceflight history.

Trial and error 

Apollo 11 was successful only because of the missions that came before it. Those flights set the stage for the lunar landing and served as the testing grounds for the burgeoning technologies and strategies that were eventually used in that mission.

Apollo 1 , originally named Apollo Saturn-204 or AS-204, was to be the program's first crewed mission, set to orbit Earth with three astronauts aboard. However, tragedy struck on Jan. 27, 1967, when a fire ignited within the Apollo 1 command module while the crew was performing a prelaunch test. All three astronauts inside — Ed White, Roger B. Chaffee and Gus Grissom — died in the fire.

At the time, it seemed like the Apollo program might be over before it really even began. But the deaths instead forced NASA to improve astronaut safety requirements. The agency put crewed missions on hold while it reevaluated its systems to make sure they were safe enough to fly. The astronauts of the Apollo 1 crew would be the only fatalities of NASA's push to land on the moon. After this first disaster, NASA tested its capabilities and resolved outstanding safety issues with uncrewed missions dubbed AS-201, AS-202, AS-203, and Apollo missions 4 through 6.

Crewed flights resumed with Apollo 7 , which launched on Oct. 11, 1968, orbited Earth for more than a week and splashed back down on Oct. 22. Aboard Apollo 7, the crew demonstrated the functionality of the command and service module. The mission also showcased how the mission-support facilities could work together with the vehicles and the crewmembers.

Apollo 7 was soon followed by the first Apollo lunar mission, Apollo 8 , which launched on Dec. 21, 1968, and returned home a week later, on Dec. 27. Apollo 8 was a major step forward in the program, as it was the first flight that took humans beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon’s orbit and back again.

The Apollo 8 mission was an important testing ground for the spacecraft systems and navigation techniques that NASA had developed for approaching and orbiting the moon. These systems and techniques made the future lunar landing possible.

Additionally, on this flight, astronaut Bill Anders took the famous "Earthrise" photo , showing the planet seeming to hover above the moon's surface. Besides being "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken," as nature photographer Galen Rowell said, the image showed the incredible progress that had been made in human spaceflight.

Apollo 9 soon followed , launching on March 3, 1969, and splashing down just over a week later, on March 13, after orbiting Earth. During this mission, the Apollo 9 astronauts tested all aspects and functionalities of the lunar module in Earth orbit and demonstrated that the craft could operate independently as it performed its docking and rendezvous maneuvers. These tests mimicked what NASA expected would happen during a lunar landing. 

The Apollo 10 mission flew a command and service module dubbed "Charlie Brown" and a lunar module known as "Snoopy." This mission, which launched on May 18, 1969, just two months before Apollo 11, proved that the crew, the vehicles and the mission-support facilities at NASA were prepared for a lunar landing. The mission was a "dry run" for the moon landing, as the Apollo 10 astronauts performed all of the operations that were scheduled for Apollo 11 except for the actual moon landing. 

All of this hurried preparation paved the way for NASA to finally launch the Apollo 11 mission — astonishingly less than a year after the first successful crewed Apollo flight.

Inside the spacecraft 

When it was finally time to send humans to the moon, NASA decided to launch the mission on a Saturn V rocket . 

That rocket lofted three modules into Earth's orbit, including the command module to carry the astronauts to and from the moon and the lunar module to land Aldrin and Armstrong on the surface. 

The massive Saturn V rocket stood an impressive 363 feet (111 meters) tall on Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Saturn V was a type of extremely powerful rocket known as a heavy lift vehicle, and with a liftoff thrust of 7.6 million lbs. (34.5 million newtons), Saturn V is not just the tallest but also the most powerful rocket ever launched. (After the Apollo program, the ultrapowerful rocket was used to launch the Skylab space station.) The rocket's first crewed launch was Apollo 8. 

Saturn V weighed 6.2 million lbs. (2.8 kilograms) and could launch about 50 tons (43,500 kg) of cargo and crew to the moon. For the Apollo program, the Saturn V was outfitted with three stages. The first stage had the most powerful engines on the rocket, to lift the craft off the ground. 

This first stage separated from the rocket with the "dead-weight" launch escape tower, leaving the second stage to carry the rocket almost into orbit. The third stage then broke the vehicle out of Earth's orbit and sent it toward the moon. 

Related: Could NASA Build the Saturn V Today? It's Working on It, with a Twist

Apollo spacecraft 

On top of the Saturn V rocket , Apollo 11 launched the command and service module — made up of the service module and the command module spacecraft — and the lunar module spacecraft. 

The command module housed the astronaut crew along with the spacecraft's operation systems and the equipment needed for reentry. Standing 10.6 feet (3.2 m) tall and 12.8 feet (3.9 m) wide at its base, the command module didn't leave much room for the astronauts inside to move around. At 210 cubic feet (6 cubic m), the space inside of the command module has been compared to the interior of a car. 

The command module was made up of three compartments — the forward compartment in the nose cone, the aft compartment at the base of the module and the crew compartment. The forward compartment held parachutes for the Earth landing, while the aft compartment held propellant tanks, reaction-control engines, wires and plumbing. Within the crew compartment, astronauts sat on three couches facing forward in the middle of the craft, which offered the crew an opportunity to look out through five windows. The command module was also powered by five silver/zinc-oxide batteries that which supported the craft in reentry and landing after it separated from the service module. 

One of the command module's most important features was its heat shield, which allowed the spacecraft to survive incredibly hot temperatures while reentering Earth's atmosphere.

For most of the Apollo 11 mission, the service module was attached to the back of the command module. Holding fuel tanks, fuel cells and oxygen/hydrogen tanks, the service module provided the command module with power, propulsion and room for additional cargo. A cylinder-shaped craft, the service module was 24.6 feet (7.5 m) long and 12.8 feet (3.9 m) in diameter. 

Sitting beneath the command and service module, the Apollo 11 lunar module , also known as "Eagle," was the final piece of the Apollo puzzle and carried Aldrin and Armstrong to the lunar surface during the historic mission. At 23 feet (7 m) tall and 14 feet (4 m) wide, the lunar module was made up of an upper ascent stage and a lower ascent stage.

After Collins inspected the lunar module, Aldrin and Armstrong undocked it from the command and service module and headed for the lunar surface, leaving Collins to orbit the moon. The Apollo lunar modules were the first crewed spacecraft to operate only in space.

In addition to the astronauts themselves, the lunar module contained the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package. That package held a number of self-contained experiments that were designed to be left on the lunar surface.

The package also held additional scientific instruments and equipment for sample collection on the surface. Apollo 11 carried the first geological samples from the moon back to Earth. In total, Armstrong and Aldrin collected 48.5 lbs. (22 kilograms) of material from the moon, including 50 moon rocks , lunar soil, pebbles, sand and dust. The astronauts also sampled material from more than 5 inches (13 centimeters) below the lunar surface.

Related: Why the Lunar Module Looked So Much Like a Moon Bug

The impact of Apollo 

An estimated 600 million people around the world watched as Armstrong and Aldrin left the first footprints on the lunar surface. The landing marked not just a historic milestone, but also the end of the Cold War space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Apollo program brought more missions and more landings, but Apollo 11 marked an unparalleled victory for the U.S. 

But the geopolitical tension had done more than just intensify the race to the moon; it also ignited a fevered excitement about space. Americans of all ages idolized the NASA astronauts.

"They were rock stars," former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino told Space.com earlier this year . As Siddiqi said, the "sort of clean-cut, all-American archetype" was a positive diversion from the massive problems that plagued the U.S. at the time. The civil rights movement was growing in response to the incredible inequalities in the country as both the Cold War and Vietnam War continued. The Apollo astronauts were the romanticized, larger-than-life heroes that people could admire during those difficult times.

"The cultural imagery, the imagination of Apollo is very powerful if you think about the pictures and the astronauts," Siddiqi said. And this superheroic imagery was only amplified as science fiction novels and movies continued to grow in popularity. Many people viewed a journey to the moon as the ultimate adventure and the Apollo astronauts as the perfect hero leads. 

The romanticization of the lunar landing program permeates space exploration even today. Fifty years after Apollo , NASA has sent spacecraft out beyond Pluto, to the surface of Mars and to the sun. Researchers have discovered exoplanets with Earth-like qualities, and our knowledge of the solar system and the universe at large has become profoundly more detailed over the decades.

But many still view the Apollo 11 lunar landing as the greatest achievement in spaceflight. People who remember watching the landing on television still recall the moment as if magic had been made real before their eyes.

We choose to return to the moon  

Humans haven't stepped foot on the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. For decades, people have wondered why we haven't returned to the moon, and presidential administrations have toyed with the idea of doing just that. But currently, the moon is having a moment, and NASA has again set its aim on landing humans on the lunar surface. 

President Donald Trump's administration recently announced a new, aggressive timeline to return astronauts to the moon. On March 26, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence announced that the U.S. would aim to land humans on the moon within the next five years.

According to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, the agency will address that goal first by sending a crew close to the moon by 2022, then landing humans at the moon's south pole by 2024. Bridenstine said this timeline will allow for a Mars landing by 2033 .

The new moon push, which has been dubbed the Artemis program, is also meant to be longer-lived than the Apollo program. "This time, when we go to the moon, we're going to stay," Bridenstine said at NASA headquarters on Feb. 14. 

The space agency has tenuous plans to build a space station that will orbit the moon as a platform for astronauts to use to reach more-diverse sites on the lunar surface. Pence said the administration's plan also includes a permanent lunar base .

But NASA isn't alone in its quest to return humans to the lunar surface. Instead, the agency is looking to build partnerships with other countries and with U.S. businesses. So far, the agency has hired Maxar to build the power and propulsion element of the lunar Gateway space station; NASA also announced that it would purchase rides to the lunar surface from Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines and Orbit Beyond for the agency's first Artemis program science experiments and technology demonstrations.

Other companies are looking to reach the moon on their own. SpaceX, for instance, has publicly stated that it intends to fly private citizens around the moon . Israeli startup SpaceIL's robotic Beresheet mission ended with a crash, but the team has already expressed interest in building a new lander. 

Other countries also have their eyes on the moon. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is working to land astronauts on the moon by 2029 and is even designing a vehicle with Toyota to explore the lunar surface. 

In the nearer term, two lunar missions may launch this year. China opened the year by becoming the first country to land on the far side of the moon, with the robotic Chang'e 4 mission. And the country is targeting its next launch, of the Chang'e 5 sample-return mission, for later this year.

India has also been pursuing both crewed and robotic missions to the moon. That country plans to launch Chandrayaan-2, which includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover, later this year. 

Apollo 11 Giveaway!

  •   How the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Worked (Infographic)  
  •   Apollo 11 Moon Rocket's F-1 Engines Explained (Infographic)  
  •   Remembering the Apollo 1 Fire (Infographic)  

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Chelsea Gohd

Chelsea “Foxanne” Gohd joined  Space.com in 2018 and is now a Senior Writer, writing about everything from climate change to planetary science and human spaceflight in both articles and on-camera in videos. With a degree in Public Health and biological sciences, Chelsea has written and worked for institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Scientific American, Discover Magazine Blog, Astronomy Magazine and Live Science. When not writing, editing or filming something space-y, Chelsea "Foxanne" Gohd is writing music and performing as Foxanne, even launching a song to space in 2021 with Inspiration4. You can follow her on Twitter  @chelsea_gohd and @foxannemusic .

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On July 20, 1969, a human walked on the Moon for the first time.

Relive the full journey to and from the the Moon with the timeline below.

Spiro Agnew and Lyndon Johnson Watch the Apollo 11 Liftoff

July 16, 1969 13:32:00 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) 9:32 am ET (Eastern Time)

Liftoff! The Apollo 11 Spacecraft launched from Cape Kennedy.

Over a million spectators, including Vice President Spiro Agnew and former President Lyndon Johnson, have come to watch the lift off. 

Traveling to the Moon

From launch to landing, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were on a three day journey to the moon. One thing that was not widely publicized during the Apollo program was that the astronauts carried music with them into space. According to most accounts, the astronauts of Gemini and Apollo listened mainly to adult contemporary and country music. 

Neil Armstrong’s musical tastes were a bit more complex than his colleagues. He chose to bring something spacey onboard his space capsule: Theremin music. 

The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, in a landing configuration

July 20, 1969 17:44 UTC 1:44 pm ET

The lunar module with Armstrong and Aldrin aboard was undocked from the command module. At 101:36 GET, the descent to the surface of the moon began.

Michael Collins stayed aboard the Command Module Columbia , serving as a communications link and photographing the lunar surface.

More about Collins's journey to the far side of the Moon

July 20, 1969 20:17 UTC 4:17 pm ET

The eagle has landed.

The lunar module touched down on the surface on the moon.

Apollo 11 Bootprint

July 20, 1969 2:51 UTC 10:51 pm ET

Neil Armstrong begins his descent from the lunar module and takes humankind’s first steps on the moon, followed by Buzz Aldrin. 

July 20, 1969 2:56 UTC 10:56 pm ET

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..

On the moon, the astronauts carried out a planned series of experiments. Approximately two hours and fifteen minutes later, the astronauts prepared to reenter the lunar module. 

About the experiments

Apollo 11 Lunar Module Ascent Stage Photographed from Command Module

July 21, 1969 17:54 UTC 1:54 pm ET

The ascent from the lunar surface began. At 21:35 UTC (5:35 pm ET) lunar module would rendezvous with the command and service modules, where Michael Collins would welcome back Aldrin and Armstrong. At 23:41 UTC (9:41 pm ET) Lunar Module  Eagle  was jettisoned into lunar orbit. 

What we left behind

July 22, 1969 4:55 UTC 11:55 pm ET

Apollo 11 left lunar orbit to return to Earth.

July 24, 1969 4:51 UTC 12:51 pm ET

Splashdown.

The astronauts returned to Earth. In case the Moon had any traces of biological pathogens, the astronauts had to stay in quarantine for 21 days. 

Apollo 11 Ticker-Tape Parade

After 21 Days in Quarantine

The United States celebrated the returning heroes in the time-honored tradition reserved for such occasions: parades. The astronauts were lauded at parades across the nation, from New York, to Chicago, to their hometowns, and eventually partook in a world tour.

More about welcoming the astronauts home

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Apollo 11 Return to Earth

Apollo 11 splashdown

24th July 1969: The day the Apollo 11 crew made it safely back to Earth and fulfilled the goal set by US President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, "to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth."

Following Lunar Module Eagle's successful rendez-vous with the Michael Collins who had been orbiting the moon in Columbia, the crew made a television broadcast to Earth, thanking those who had worked on the project and reassuring the world waiting below that they had complete faith in their equipment for a successful return.

The rescue team had been deployed to be at the ready in the Pacific ocean on July 12th, before Saturn V had even launched. However it was identified that a storm would be due to hit the planned recovery area which would damage the parachutes and potentially risk the lives of the crew. NASA were advised and so a Plan B recovery area was used instead.

Four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 tracers were deployed before dawn on July 24th. They carried divers, recovery equipment, photographic equipment and the decontamination swimmer and flight surgeon.

Columbia made a successful splashdown on July 24th, albeit upside down. The crew activated flotation devices which righted the aircraft. The recovery team were the first to welcome the three crew back to Earth.

NASA was extremely cautious about the possibility of the astronauts bringing back lunar pathogens to Earth, so the equipment and astronauts were required to spend three weeks in quarantine. They were examined and declared healthy after their trip, then released from quarantine on August 10th 1969.

Apollo 11 quarantine

Further information

  • FAI series of Apollo 11 articles
  • NASA mission overview

Images: NASA

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50 Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

By mentalfloss .com | oct 24, 2023, 10:12 am edt.

NASA/Liaison/Hulton Archives, Getty Images

On July 16, 1969 , Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin , and Michael Collins launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center with the goal of becoming the first people in history to walk on the Moon . Four days later, on July 20, 1969, the manned mission achieved that historic goal when Neil Armstrong took his famous “one small step” onto the lunar surface. But getting there was hardly smooth sailing. 

1. The original goal of the Apollo program was to send a crew into the Moon’s orbit, but John f. Kennedy wanted more.

When the Apollo program was announced in 1960, the original plan was to send a small crew into the Moon's orbit, not to its surface. President Kennedy, of course, made his famous speech in 1961, declaring his and the United States's commitment to landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

2. Apollo 11’s goal was simply to arrive on the Moon, then return to Earth.

When it came to the primary objective of the Apollo 11 mission, NASA kept it simple: "Perform a manned lunar landing and return."

3. The Apollo 11 astronauts were oddly calm during liftoff.

The average resting heart rate of an adult human is somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute (bpm), depending on the individual’s age, size, heart conditions, and other factors. Throw a little excitement into the mix and one’s heart is likely to beat much faster. Yet the Apollo 11 astronauts, whose heart rates were monitored throughout the expedition, remained surprisingly normal. At liftoff , Armstrong was the most excited of the bunch with a rate of 110 bpm. Collins, meanwhile, was clocked at 99, while a clearly calm Aldrin logged a rate of just 88 bpm.

4. The most important Apollo 11 spectators were seated miles from the launch pad.

Vice President Spiro Agnew and former President Lyndon Johnson view the liftoff of Apollo 11 from the stands located at the Kennedy Space Center VIP viewing site.

While millions of people kept track of Apollo’s movements on television, space program enthusiasts also traveled to Florida to watch the guys launch into space with their own two eyes. It was the perfect opportunity for NASA to honor some of the organization’s biggest supporters and VIPs with a prime seat for watching it all go down. But even then, those individuals were seated 3.5 miles from the launchpad—in the event that the rocket exploded upon takeoff.

5. Richard Nixon had a speech prepared in case the Apollo 11 astronauts never came home.

As with many historic undertakings, President Nixon had to prepare for the possibility that a tragedy might occur during the Apollo 11 mission. So his speechwriter, William Safire, wrote two different speeches: one to celebrate the mission’s victory, another titled “In the Event of Moon Disaster.” It stated:

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice."

You can read the full text online [ PDF ].

6. Your toaster is more advanced than Apollo 11’s command module computer.

Though the Apollo Guidance Computer (ACG) was cutting-edge technology for its time, when compared to the computer-based items we use every day, they were pretty basic. reported that these “ingenious computer systems” were no more powerful than a pocket calculator and that the ACG was “more basic than the electronics in modern toasters that have computer controlled stop/start/defrost buttons."

7. The Apollo 11 astronauts consumed a lot of fizzy water.

Due to a problem with the spacecraft’s hydrogen-gas filters, the men’s drinking water was always a bit bubbly. “The drinking water is laced with hydrogen bubbles (a consequence of fuel-cell technology which demonstrates that H2 and O join imperfectly to form H2O)," Michael Collins wrote in Carrying the Fire : An Astronaut's Journeys , his 1974 memoir.

8. All those bubbles meant that there was a lot of farting.

As if being in tight quarters for several days didn’t already present enough challenges, all those fizzy drinks led to some serious flatulence. “These bubbles produced gross flatulence in the lower bowel, resulting in a not-so-subtle and pervasive aroma which reminds me of a mixture of wet dog and marsh gas,” Collins wrote .

9. Normal bodily functions weren’t a thing that NASA had adequately planned for with Apollo 11.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

Speaking of bodily functions: NASA hadn’t fully worked out all the challenges the astronauts might face when attempting to go to the bathroom in a zero-gravity situation. One Apollo 11 astronaut spent the entire trip loading up on anti-diarrhea medication so that he could forgo having to deal with that situation altogether (though the identity of that astronaut has never been made public).

10. Buzz Aldrin’s mom had a prophetic last name.

Before Buzz Aldrin’s mom, Marion, married Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr., she was known as Marion Moon. When asked by The New York Times to confirm the veracity of that fun coincidence, Aldrin responded with an emphatic: “Yes. I didn’t feel NASA needed to know that. Somebody would think I was trying to get favored treatment because my ancestors had the name Moon. And that’s a joke.”

11. Michael Collins designed the Apollo 11 insignia.

In 1965, Gemini V became the first NASA crew to have a dedicated insignia, which was designed by pilot Pete Conrad and command pilot Gordon Cooper. This tradition of a crew wearing patches designed by its own members has continued over the years, with the Apollo 11 crew following suit. Ultimately, they decided to make the concept a representation of the larger goals of NASA—and America—at the time.

"We wanted to keep our three names off it because we wanted the design to be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing, and there were thousands who could take a proprietary interest in it, yet who would never see their names woven into the fabric of a patch,” Collins said . “Further, we wanted the design to be symbolic rather than explicit."

12. Neil Armstrong wasn’t convinced that they’d be able to land the Lunar Module.

In 2012, in a rare interview, Armstrong admitted that while he was confident he and his fellow crew members would make it back to Earth, he was less convinced that the crew would succeed in landing their lunar module, known as Eagle.

"A month before the launch of Apollo 11, we decided we were confident enough we could try and attempt on a descent to the surface," Armstrong said . “I thought we had a 90 percent chance of getting back safely to Earth on that flight but only a 50-50 chance of making a landing on that first attempt. There are so many unknowns on that descent from lunar orbit down to the surface that had not been demonstrated yet by testing and there was a big chance that there was something in there we didn't understand properly and we had to abort and come back to Earth without landing."

13. The woman who coined the phrase software engineering is partly to thank for sending Apollo 11 to the Moon.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

Getting to the Moon requires some serious software innovation, especially in the 1960s. Margaret Hamilton led the team that wrote every line of code for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Hamilton—a pioneer who coined the term software engineering —is probably most recognizable for the famous photo of her and the stack of printed-out code standing as tall as she is. She was just 33 years old when that code sent the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.

14. The source code that took Apollo 11 to the Moon was full of jokes and political references.

We're back with another surprise hunt of the #Apollo11 source code! These 2 surprises are buried within the "Burn, Baby, Burn" Master Ignition Routine. Comment below when you find it, and challenge a friend! For more Apollo-related fun, visit https://t.co/5nIHB5sciK . #hackthemoon pic.twitter.com/Aiop7EZNm6 — Draper (@DraperLab) May 22, 2019

Computer programmers aren't generally known for their senses of humor, but a piece of space history— discovered in 2016—suggests that maybe they should be. Former NASA intern Chris Garry uploaded the Apollo 11 flight source code to GitHub , revealing a legendary piece of flight software that was full of jokes and topical 1960s references.

Paired with the code that helped NASA astronauts navigate the Moon landing are file names like "BURN_BABY_BURN," which, as ABC News reported , is actually a reference to DJ Magnificent Montague and the Black Power movement. Other comments include "HELLO THERE," "GOODBYE. COME AGAIN SOON," and file names like "PINBALL_GAME_BUTTONS_AND_LIGHTS."

15. Pieces of the Wright Brothers’ first aircraft were onboard Apollo 11.

In 1969, the Air Force contacted Armstrong to see if he’d be willing to take pieces of the Wright Brothers’ first aircraft to take flight to the Moon with him. As a thank you, Armstrong would be allowed to keep half of the pieces. Armstrong, an avid flier, was enthusiastic.

"It was important to take the genesis of flight with him," Mark Armstrong, Neil’s son, said earlier this year. "First and foremost, he was an engineer and someone who wanted to make aircraft better. That was his boyhood goal, to be an aircraft designer.”

16. When asked what he wanted to take with him to the Moon, Armstrong’s answer was somewhat prophetic.

On July 5, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts did a roundtable interview with members of the press. When asked whether he’d be taking any personal mementos to the Moon with him, Armstrong responded : “If I had a choice, I would take more fuel."

17. When Apollo 11 landed, they were really low on fuel.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

Why was Armstrong’s aforementioned response so prophetic? When Apollo 11 finally did land, their fuel supply was extremely low. The alarm had already sounded that the men had 60 seconds left to land or abort, then the 30-second alarm sounded. "When it got down to 30 seconds, we were about 10 feet or less" from the surface, Aldrin said . "I could sneak a look out, because at that point, I don't think Neil cared what the numbers were. He was looking at the outside. I could see a shadow of the sun being behind us." Seconds later, Armstrong confirmed to Houston that, "the Eagle has landed."

18. Eagle’s overworked computer system had Apollo 11 landing in a boulder-filled crater.

Eagle's computer was really put to the test during the mission’s landing—so much so that it was attempting to land the module in a crater full of boulders. "Those slopes are steep, the rocks are very large—the size of automobiles," Armstrong said . In order to avoid that potential disaster, Armstrong took manual control of the lunar module and attempted to find a safer place for them to land.

19. Apollo 11 landed in the wrong place.

Needless to say, Apollo 11 didn’t touch down at its intended landing site. Thanks to Armstrong’s quick thinking, they were able to successfully land—albeit 4 miles from where they were supposed to. “I took it over manually and flew it like a helicopter out to the west direction, took it to a smoother area without so many rocks, and found a level area and was able to get it down there before we ran out of fuel,” Armstrong said .

20. Armstrong’s "small step" was more of a "giant leap."

Because Eagle had to reconfigure its landing site, Armstrong’s landing was a very gentle one—so gentle that the module’s pads and legs didn’t collapse as they were supposed to. Which meant that the bottom rung of Eagle’s ladder was about 3.5 feet above ground . In order to get to the surface of the Moon for that official step, he first had to hop off the ladder, then back up to it (to make sure he could reach it again). Then came that whole “one small step” business.

21. Armstrong’s first steps took place late at night.

Humans 1st set foot on a heavenly body #OTD 1969. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon at 10:56 pm (Eastern Time). #OneGiantLeap pic.twitter.com/WhLkyYb5qN — NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) July 20, 2017

22. A lot of people watched the Apollo 11 Moon landing happen.

It may have been past a lot of kids’ bedtimes, but an estimated 600 million people around the world watched Apollo 11 land on live television.

23. Even Disneyland guests took a break from Mickey and Minnie to watch the Moon landing.

The Apollo 11 moon landing, perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments in human history, was broadcasted live to thousands of #Disneyland park Guests gathered at the Tomorrowland Stage on July 20, 1969. #Tomorrowland #NASA pic.twitter.com/5dYBOQ5ZUT — Walt Disney Archives (@TWDCArchives) July 20, 2018

24. Armstrong swore that his “one small step” line was misheard back on Earth.

People back on Earth who watched Armstrong’s first steps onto the lunar surface could have sworn that they heard him say, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” but Armstrong repeatedly stated that this was incorrect. And what he really said was, “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

"It's just that people just didn't hear [the 'a']," Armstrong told the press once he was back on Earth. In 2006, a computer programmer used a piece of software to analyze Armstrong’s words and found that the “a” was indeed there (it was likely not heard because of radio static).

25. Armstrong tried to not be too awed by his surroundings.

Ever the professional, Armstrong did his best to ignore the fact that he was standing on the Moon so that he and Aldrin could get their work done. According to The Guardian , "Armstrong said there was too much work to do to spend too long meditating or reflecting on where he was."

26. Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the Moon, but Buzz Aldrin was the first man to pee on the Moon.

"It's lonely as hell out there," Aldrin told a crowd of people at Washington, D.C.'s Newseum in 2009. "I peed in my pants."

27. No one back at NASA HQ knew what "Tranquility Base" meant.

In all of the meticulous pre-mission planning, two words never came up: “Tranquility base.” Which made Armstrong’s announcement that, “Houston. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” kind of confusing. Fortunately, the folks back in Houston just rolled with it.

28. At the same time Armstrong and Aldrin were completing their moonwalk, a soviet spacecraft accidentally crashed into the Moon.

At the same time that Armstrong and Aldrin were wrapping up their work on the lunar surface, Luna 15—an unmanned Soviet spacecraft—accidentally crashed into the Moon approximately 530 miles from the Sea of Tranquility.

29. Collins was terrified that something would go wrong and he’d have to return to Earth alone.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

In his memoir, Michael Collins wrote about how dangerous the Apollo 11 mission was and how terrified he was that something would go wrong. “If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide,” Collins wrote about the moment when he watched his fellow astronauts attempt their return home. “I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life, and I know it.”

30. Some Apollo 8 legal problems caused a last-minute change of plans.

When Apollo 8 circled the Moon on December 24, 1968, they were asked to do “something appropriate” to mark the occasion for the millions of people who were spending their Christmas Eve listening to them back on Earth. They decided to read a verse from Genesis, which ended up enraging noted atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair to the point that she sued the space organization, claiming that reading had violated her First Amendment rights. The case was eventually thrown out, but NASA didn’t want to chance having to deal with a similar situation with Apollo 11. Buzz Aldrin had planned to read a communion passage, but was asked to scrap it at the last minute.

31. A communion wafer was the first item eaten on the Moon.

Though Aldrin wasn’t able to share his communion passage with those back on Earth, he did take a few moments to observe the sacrament privately shortly after landing on the Moon. "I ate the tiny host and swallowed the wine,” Aldrin said . “I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: The very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."

32. Armstrong and Aldrin had to be careful not to lock themselves out of the module.

If their heart rates were any indication, Armstrong and Aldrin were pretty calm, cool, and collected when they landed on the Moon. And it’s a good thing: Had they been overwhelmed by the cosmic wonder of it all, they could have easily locked themselves out of their lunar module, as Eagle’s door had no outer handle .

33. There was some confusion about where the Apollo 11 flag came from.

Before landing on the Moon, there was much discussion as to how appropriate planting any single country's flag on its surface would be. Ultimately it was decided that the men would plant an American flag and leave a plaque emphasizing that they “came in peace for all mankind.”

Of course, then the big question became: Where did that American flag come from? NASA tried their best to dodge the question, explaining that they had purchased flags from several different manufacturers. However, it turned out that all of the flags came from Sears , but the space organization didn’t “want another Tang” on their hands. In other words: They didn’t want Sears to turn the Moon landing into an advertising campaign for the company.

34. Planting the American flag wasn’t as seamless a task as it may have seemed.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

Though studies conducted before Apollo 11’s mission had concluded that the Moon’s surface would be soft, Armstrong and Aldrin quickly learned that wasn’t the case. The surface was made of hard rock, with a layer of dust on top of it, which made planting the American flag one of their toughest jobs.

35. That flag didn’t stand for very long.

While the photos of Armstrong and Aldrin standing next to the planted American flag are famous around the world, that flag didn’t stay standing very long, Thanks to the power produced by Eagle’s thrusters when the two launched back into lunar orbit, the flag quickly toppled over.

36. The flag most likely disintegrated.

As for what happened to that flag once it fell over? It likely turned to ashes. “The flag is probably gone,” Tony Reichhardt wrote for Air & Space Magazine. “Buzz Aldrin saw it knocked over by the rocket blast as he and Neil Armstrong left the Moon … Lying there in the lunar dust, unprotected from the sun’s harsh ultraviolet rays, the flag’s red and blue would have bleached white in no time. Over the years, the nylon would have turned brittle and disintegrated.”

37. The astronauts left a lot of stuff behind.

Armstrong and Aldrin left more than just that flag behind: Among the other meaningful mementos that didn’t make the trip back to Earth were messages from 73 world leaders, a gold pin in the shape of an olive branch (meant to symbolize peace), and a patch from the Apollo 1 mission (which never launched because three of its astronauts were killed during a training exercise).

38. Apollo 11's return to Earth is largely due to a felt-tipped pen.

When Eagle landed on the Moon’s surface, the circuit breaker’s switch—which was essential for their return to Earth—accidentally broke off. Aldrin wrote about how some quick-thinking helped solve the problem in his 2009 memoir, Magnificent Desolation : The Long Journey Home From the Moon :

"Since it was electrical, I decided not to put my finger in, or use anything that had metal on the end. I had a felt-tipped pen in the shoulder pocket of my suit that might do the job. After moving the countdown procedure up by a couple of hours in case it didn't work, I inserted the pen into the small opening where the circuit breaker switch should have been, and pushed it in; sure enough, the circuit breaker held. We were going to get off the Moon, after all."

39. Aldrin kept that pen as a memento.

In addition to that pen, Aldrin also kept the broken circuit breaker switch. Before they took off, all three of the Apollo 11 astronauts were issued their own "Rocket" felt-tipped pen today, Collins’s can be seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

40. The rocks they brought back were billions of years old.

While the press seemed most interested in what the Apollo 11 astronauts were planning to take with them to the Moon, what they brought back was even more amazing. Some of the rocks they brought home were estimated to be 3.7 billion years old.

41. Armstrong’s bag of Moon dust was accidentally sold for $995.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

While surveying the surface of the Moon, Armstrong collected a bag of dust for NASA scientists to study and analyze. In 2015, that bag of Moon dust was purchased from a government auction site for $995 by Chicagoan Nancy Lee Carlson. When Carlson sent the bag to NASA to confirm the authenticity of what was inside it, NASA claimed the bag was their property and refused to send it back. So Carlson took the agency to court, where a judge ruled in her favor. In 2017, Carlson sold the bag for $1.8 million via Sotheby’s.

42. The Moon apparently has a very distinct smell.

"It smelled, to me, like wet ashes in a fireplace,” Armstrong said of the Moon’s smell.

To Aldrin’s nose , however, it was more of “a pungent metallic smell, something like gunpowder, or the smell in the air after a firecracker has gone off."

43. Buzz Aldrin had to fill out an expense report for his trip to the Moon.

#TBT My mission director @Buzzs_xtina's favorite piece of my memorabilia. My travel voucher to the moon. #Apollo11 pic.twitter.com/c89UyOfvgY — Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) July 30, 2015

Bureaucracy doesn’t stop for world-changing events. Though he made history by becoming the second person to walk on the Moon, Aldrin—like so many other office drones before and after him—was forced to be subjected to the mundane indignities of filling out his expense reports . The astronaut, who retired in 1971, requested reimbursement for $33.31 in travel expenses incurred while traveling to and from Cape Kennedy in Florida.

44. The astronauts had to fill out customs forms, too.

Yes the #Apollo11 crew also signed customs forms. We brought back moon rocks & moon dust samples. Moon disease TBD. pic.twitter.com/r9Sn57DeoW — Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) August 2, 2015

Just like any other traveler who left the United States, the Apollo 11 team had to fill out customs forms when they made their way back through Honolulu.

45. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were quarantined for more than two weeks upon their return to Earth.

On July 24, the Apollo 11 crew reentered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean after more than a week in space. In order to ensure the men hadn’t brought back any sort of weird Moon diseases or other microbes, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were quickly placed into a mobile quarantine unit, which was then transported to the NASA Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Houston's Johnson Space Center. They were released from quarantine on August 10, 1969.

46. Hundreds of autographed photos were the astronauts’ version of life insurance.

apollo 11 trip back to earth

To make sure that their families were taken care of, financially, if they did not return from their mission, the Apollo 11 astronauts spent part of their pre-mission quarantine signing hundreds of autographs , which were to be auctioned off if and when needed. Fortunately, they were not.

47. Apollo 11 “life insurance autographs” still pop up at auctions from time to time.

Space historian Robert Pearlman told NPR that Apollo 11 insurance autographs began popping up at space memorabilia auctions in the 1990s, where they could fetch $30,000 apiece. When Armstrong, who did his best to stay out of the spotlight following Apollo 11, learned that people were profiting from his autographs, he stopped signing them altogether.

48. The Apollo 11 astronauts (mostly) laughed off the conspiracy theories.

Even 50 years later, there are still some people who believe that the Moon landing was a hoax. But the men who manned Apollo 11 had a sense of humor about it. “It would have been harder to fake it than to do it,” Armstrong once famously said . And on at least one occasion, Aldrin had a hard time laughing it off.

In 2001, Aldrin was approached by conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel, who wanted the astronaut to put his hand on a Bible and swear to God that he had walked on the Moon. While Aldrin did his best to ignore Sibrel, the NASA legend didn't take too kindly to being called "a coward, and a liar, and a thief" by Sibrel. So he punched him in the face ...

49. No, the Apollo 11 astronauts did not have an alien encounter.

In 2018, UFO enthusiasts ran with an out-of-context quote Aldrin had given about an unidentified object the crew had seen outside the spacecraft's window. While many tabloids ran with the idea that Aldrin was saying the Apollo 11 crew had seen a UFO, Aldrin was quick to correct the record ... but it was too late to stop the conspiracy theories from developing. In a 2014 Reddit AMA , Aldrin tried to set the record straight yet again:

"On Apollo 11 [en] route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world—it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft. So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And i feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be 'unidentified.' ... [W]hen we returned, we debriefed and explained exactly what we had observed. And I felt that this had been distributed to the outside world, the outside audience, and apparently it wasn't, and so many years later, I had the time in an interview to disclose these observations, on another country's television network. And the UFO people in the United States were very very angry with me, that I had not given them the information. It was not an alien."

50. The first men to walk on the Moon had a lot of help.

In total, it’s estimated that it took approximately 400,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians to make Apollo 11’s mission a success.

Apollo at 50: We Choose to Go to the Moon

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Science | June 2019

What You Didn’t Know About the Apollo 11 Mission

From JFK’s real motives to the Soviets’ secret plot to land on the Moon at the same time, a new behind-the-scenes view of an unlikely triumph 50 years ago

Lunar extravehicular visor assembly

Charles Fishman

The Moon has a smell. It has no air, but it has a smell. Each pair of Apollo astronauts to land on the Moon tramped lots of Moon dust back into the lunar module—it was deep gray, fine-grained and extremely clingy—and when they unsnapped their helmets, Neil Armstrong said, “We were aware of a new scent in the air of the cabin that clearly came from all the lunar material that had accumulated on and in our clothes.” To him, it was “the scent of wet ashes.” To his Apollo 11 crewmate Buzz Aldrin, it was “the smell in the air after a firecracker has gone off.”

All the astronauts who walked on the Moon noticed it, and many commented on it to Mission Control. Harrison Schmitt, the geologist who flew on Apollo 17, the last lunar landing, said after his second Moonwalk, “Smells like someone’s been firing a carbine in here.” Almost unaccountably, no one had warned lunar module pilot Jim Irwin about the dust. When he took off his helmet inside the cramped lunar module cabin, he said, “There’s a funny smell in here.” His Apollo 15 crewmate Dave Scott said: “Yeah, I think that’s the lunar dirt smell. Never smelled lunar dirt before, but we got most of it right here with us.”

Moon dust was a mystery that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had, in fact, thought about. Cornell University astrophysicist Thomas Gold warned NASA that the dust had been isolated from oxygen for so long that it might well be highly chemically reactive. If too much dust was carried inside the lunar module’s cabin, the moment the astronauts repressurized it with air and the dust came into contact with oxygen, it might start burning, or even cause an explosion. (Gold, who correctly predicted early on that the Moon’s surface would be covered with powdery dust, also had warned NASA that the dust might be so deep that the lunar module and the astronauts themselves could sink irretrievably into it.)

Among the thousands of things they were keeping in mind while flying to the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin had been briefed about the very small possibility that the lunar dust could ignite. “A late-July fireworks display on the Moon was not something advisable,” said Aldrin.

rock astronauts diptych

Armstrong and Aldrin did their own test. Just a moment after he became the first human being to step onto the Moon, Armstrong had scooped a bit of lunar dirt into a sample bag and put it in a pocket of his spacesuit—a contingency sample, in the event the astronauts had to leave suddenly without collecting rocks. Back inside the lunar module the duo opened the bag and spread the lunar soil on top of the ascent engine. As they repressurized the cabin, they watched to see if the dirt started to smolder. “If it did, we’d stop pressurization, open the hatch and toss it out,” Aldrin explained. “But nothing happened.”

The Moon dust turned out to be so clingy and so irritating that on the one night that Armstrong and Aldrin spent in the lunar module on the surface of the Moon, they slept in their helmets and gloves, in part to avoid breathing the dust floating around inside the cabin.

By the time the Moon rocks and dust got back to Earth—a total of 842 pounds from six lunar landings—the odor was gone from the samples, exposed to air and moisture in their storage boxes. No one has quite figured out what caused the odor to begin with, or why it was so like spent gunpowder, which is chemically nothing like Moon rock. “Very distinctive smell,” Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad said. “I’ll never forget. And I’ve never smelled it again since then.”

In 1999, as the century was ending, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was among a group of people who was asked to name the most significant human achievement of the 20th century. In ranking the events, Schlesinger said, “I put DNA and penicillin and the computer and the microchip in the first ten because they’ve transformed civilization.” But in 500 years, if the United States of America still exists, most of its history will have faded to invisibility. “Pearl Harbor will be as remote as the War of the Roses,” said Schlesinger. “The one thing for which this century will be remembered 500 years from now was: This was the century when we began the exploration of space.” He picked the first Moon landing, Apollo 11, as the most significant event of the 20th century.

The trip from one small planet to its smaller nearby moon might someday seem as routine to us as a commercial flight today from Dallas to New York City. But it is hard to argue with Schlesinger’s larger observation: In the chronicle of humanity, the first missions by people from Earth through space to another planetary body are unlikely ever to be lost to history, to memory, or to storytelling.

The leap to the Moon in the 1960s was an astonishing accomplishment. But why? What made it astonishing? We’ve lost track not just of the details; we’ve lost track of the plot itself. What exactly was the hard part?

The answer is simple: When President John F. Kennedy declared in 1961 that the United States would go to the Moon, he was committing the nation to do something we simply couldn’t do. We didn’t have the tools or equipment—the rockets or the launchpads, the spacesuits or the computers or the micro-gravity food. And it isn’t just that we didn’t have what we would need; we didn’t even know what we would need. We didn’t have a list; no one in the world had a list. Indeed, our unpreparedness for the task goes a level deeper: We didn’t even know how to fly to the Moon. We didn’t know what course to fly to get there from here. And as the small example of lunar dirt shows, we didn’t know what we would find when we got there. Physicians worried that people wouldn’t be able to think in micro-gravity conditions. Mathematicians worried that we wouldn’t be able to calculate how to rendezvous two spacecraft in orbit—to bring them together in space and dock them in flight both perfectly and safely.

On May 25, 1961, when Kennedy asked Congress to send Americans to the Moon before the 1960s were over, NASA had no rockets to launch astronauts to the Moon, no computer portable enough to guide a spaceship to the Moon, no spacesuits to wear on the way, no spaceship to land astronauts on the surface (let alone a Moon car to let them drive around and explore), no network of tracking stations to talk to the astronauts en route.

“When [Kennedy] asked us to do that in 1961, it was impossible,” said Chris Kraft, the man who invented Mission Control. “We made it possible. We, the United States, made it possible.”

Ten thousand problems had to be solved to get us to the Moon. Every one of those challenges was tackled and mastered between May 1961 and July 1969. The astronauts, the nation, flew to the Moon because hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, managers and factory workers unraveled a series of puzzles, often without knowing whether the puzzle had a good solution.

Preview thumbnail for 'One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon

One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon

trajectory of Apollo 11 mission

In retrospect, the results are both bold and bemusing. The Apollo spacecraft ended up with what was, for its time, the smallest, fastest and most nimble computer in a single package anywhere in the world. That computer navigated through space and helped the astronauts operate the ship. But the astronauts also traveled to the Moon with paper star charts so they could use a sextant to take star sightings—like 18th-century explorers on the deck of a ship—and cross-check their computer’s navigation. The software of the computer was stitched together by women sitting at specialized looms—using wire instead of thread. In fact, an arresting amount of work across Apollo was done by hand: The heat shield was applied to the spaceship by hand with a fancy caulking gun; the parachutes were sewn by hand, and then folded by hand. The only three staff members in the country who were trained and licensed to fold and pack the Apollo parachutes were considered so indispensable that NASA officials forbade them to ever ride in the same car, to avoid their all being injured in a single accident. Despite its high-tech aura, we have lost sight of the extent to which the lunar mission was handmade.

The race to the Moon in the 1960s was, in fact, a real race, motivated by the Cold War and sustained by politics. It has been only 50 years—not 500—and yet that part of the story too has faded.

One of the ribbons of magic running through the Apollo missions is that an all-out effort born from bitter rivalry ended up uniting the world in awe and joy and appreciation in a way it had never been united before and has never been united since.

The mission to land astronauts on the Moon is all the more compelling because it was part of a decade of transformation, tragedy and division in the United States. The nation’s lunar ambition, we tend to forget, was itself divisive. On the eve of the launch of Apollo 11, civil rights protesters, led by the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, marched on Cape Kennedy.

In that way, the story of Apollo holds echoes and lessons for our own era. A nation determined to accomplish something big and worthwhile can do it, even when the goal seems beyond reach, even when the nation is divided. Kennedy said of the Apollo mission that it was hard—we were going to the Moon precisely because doing so was hard—and that it would “serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” And measure the breadth of our spirit as well.

Today the Moon landing has ascended to the realm of American mythology. In our imaginations, it’s a snippet of crackly audio, a calm and slightly hesitant Neil Armstrong stepping from the ladder onto the surface of the Moon, saying, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It is such a landmark accomplishment that the decade-long journey has been concentrated into a single event, as if on a summer day in 1969, three men climbed into a rocket, flew to the Moon, pulled on their spacesuits, took a few steps, planted the American flag, and then came home.

Cape Kennedy

But the magic, of course, was the result of an incredible effort—an effort unlike any that had been seen before. Three times as many people worked on Apollo as on the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb. In 1961, the year Kennedy formally announced Apollo, NASA spent $1 million on the program for the year. Five years later NASA was spending about $1 million every three hours on Apollo, 24 hours a day.

One myth holds that Americans enthusiastically supported NASA and the space program, that Americans wanted to go to the Moon. In fact two American presidents in a row hauled the space program all the way to the Moon with not even half of Americans saying they thought it was worthwhile. The ’60s were tumultuous, riven by the Vietnam War, urban riots, the assassinations. Americans constantly questioned why we were going to the Moon when we couldn’t handle our problems on Earth.

As early as 1964, when asked if America should “go all out to beat the Russians in a manned flight to the Moon,” only 26 percent of Americans said yes. During Christmas 1968, NASA sent three astronauts in an Apollo capsule all the way to the Moon, where they orbited just 70 miles over the surface, and on Christmas Eve, in a live, prime-time TV broadcast, they shared pictures of the Moon’s surface, as seen out their windows. Then the three astronauts, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, read aloud the first ten verses of Genesis to what was then the largest TV audience in history. From orbit, Anders took one of the most famous pictures of all time, the photo of the Earth floating in space above the Moon, the first full-color photo of Earth from space, later titled Earthrise , a single image credited with helping inspire the modern environmental movement.

Anticipation for the actual Moon landing should have been extraordinary. In fact, as earlier in the decade, and despite years of saturation coverage of Apollo and the astronauts, it was anything but universal. Four weeks after Apollo 8’s telecast from lunar orbit, the Harris Poll conducted a survey and asked Americans if they favored landing a man on the Moon. Only 39 percent said yes. Asked if they thought the space program was worth the $4 billion a year it was costing, 55 percent of Americans said no. That year, 1968, the war in Vietnam had cost $19.3 billion, more than the total cost of Apollo to that point, and had taken the lives of 16,899 U.S. troops—almost 50 dead every single day—by far the worst single year of the war for the U.S. military. Americans would prove to be delighted to have flown to the Moon, but they were not preoccupied by it.

The big myth of Apollo is that it was somehow a failure, or at least a disappointment. That’s certainly the conventional wisdom—that while the landings were a triumph, the aimless U.S. space program since then means Apollo itself was also pointless. Where is the Mars landing? Where are the Moon bases, the network of orbital outposts? We haven’t done any of that, and we’re decades from doing it now. That misunderstands Apollo, though. The success is the very age we live in now. The race to the Moon didn’t usher in the space age; it ushered in the digital age.

When Kennedy asked us to do that in 1961, it was impossible. We made it possible. We, the United States, made it possible.

Historians of Silicon Valley and its origins may skip briskly past Apollo and NASA, which seem to have operated in a parallel world without much connection to or impact on the wizards of Intel and Microsoft. But the space program in the 1960s did two things to lay the foundation of the digital revolution. First, NASA used integrated circuits—the first computer chips—in the computers that flew the Apollo command module and the Apollo lunar module. Except for the U.S. Air Force, NASA was the first significant customer for integrated circuits. Microchips power the world now, of course, but in 1962 they were little more than three years old, and for Apollo they were a brilliant if controversial bet. Even IBM decided against using them in the company’s computers in the early 1960s. NASA’s demand for integrated circuits, and its insistence on their near-flawless manufacture, helped create the world market for the chips and helped cut the price by 90 percent in five years.

NASA was the first organization of any kind—company or government agency—anywhere in the world to give computer chips responsibility for human life. If the chips could be depended on to fly astronauts safely to the Moon, they were probably good enough for computers that would run chemical plants or analyze advertising data.

NASA also introduced Americans, and the world, to the culture and power of technology—we watched on TV for a decade as staff members at Mission Control used computers to fly spaceships to the Moon. Part of that was NASA introducing the rest of the world to “real-time computing,” a phrase that seems redundant to anyone who’s been using a computer since the late 1970s. But in 1961, there was almost no computing in which an ordinary person—an engineer, a scientist, a mathematician—sat at a machine, asked it to do calculations and got the answers while sitting there. Instead you submitted your programs on stacks of punch cards, and you got back piles of printouts based on the computer’s run of your cards—and you got those printouts hours or days later.

But the Apollo spacecraft—command module and lunar module—were flying to the Moon at almost 24,000 miles per hour. That’s six miles every second. The astronauts couldn’t wait a minute for their calculations; in fact, if they wanted to arrive at the right spot on the Moon, they couldn’t wait a second. In an era when even the batch-processing machines took up vast rooms of floor space, the Apollo spacecraft had real-time computers that fit into a single cubic foot, a stunning feat of both engineering and programming.

Kennedy’s call to leap to the Moon ahead of the Russians was greeted with wild enthusiasm in the spring and summer of 1961. But when it came to public events, Americans’ attention spans were no longer in the 1960s than they are today. We were no more inclined toward the virtues of slow-and-steady progress, no more capable of delayed gratification. Even before 1961 was over, there were prominent public voices stoking skepticism and dissent about the value of the Moon race.

In 1961, Senator Paul H. Douglas released his own poll, not of the American people but of U.S. space scientists. The question: Was sending astronauts to the Moon, “at the earliest feasible moment,” of great scientific value? Douglas had arranged to poll the membership of the American Astronomical Society, and received 381 written replies from astronomers and space scientists. Of those, 36 percent said a manned Moon mission had “great scientific value,” and 35 percent said it had “little scientific value.” And unmanned, robotic missions to the Moon? Sixty-six percent of space scientists said they would have “great scientific value.” Douglas, a liberal Democrat, was a member of Kennedy’s own party, and he had gone to some trouble to establish that America’s actual space scientists judged that the race to the Moon wasn’t worth it. “If the astronomers are not competent [to decide],” asked Douglas, “who is?”

Norbert Wiener, a professor and legendary mathematician at MIT, dismissed Apollo in a late 1961 interview as a “moondoggle,” a word the press and NASA critics loved; through the end of 1961 and into 1962, “moondoggle” started to pop up regularly in coverage of the space program, particularly in stories about spending and in editorials.

In January 1962 the New York Times published an editorial pointing out that “the grand total for the Moon excursion would reproduce from 75 to 120 universities about the size of Harvard, with some [money] left over”—a Moon landing, or a Harvard University for every state?

In August 1962 the Russians launched two cosmonauts, in separate spaceships, within 24 hours of each other, the double mission totaling seven days in space at a moment when the total for all four American spaceflights was 11 hours. Kennedy was asked at a press conference why Americans shouldn’t be pessimistic since they were not just second to the Soviets but “now a poor second.” “We are behind and we are going to be behind for a while,” he replied. “But I believe that before the end of this decade is out, the United States will be ahead....This year we submitted a space budget which was greater than the combined eight space budgets of the previous eight years.” The press conference comments were defensive and reflexive. There was no eloquence about space in them, the responses more dutiful than enthusiastic.

In the fall of 1962, Kennedy did a two-day tour of space facilities to see for himself how the Moon program was taking shape. Huntsville, Alabama, home to Wernher von Braun’s rocket team, was the first stop. Von Braun showed the president a model of the Saturn rocket that would eventually launch astronauts to the Moon. “This is the vehicle which is designed to fulfill your promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade,” von Braun told Kennedy. He paused, then added, “By God, we’ll do it!”

Von Braun took Kennedy to the firing of a Saturn C-1 rocket as a demonstration of the coming power of American rocketry. The test—eight engines firing simultaneously, roaring red-orange rocket thrust out of a test stand, with Kennedy, von Braun and the visiting party in a viewing bunker less than a half-mile away—shook the ground and sent shock waves across the Alabama test facility. When the engines stilled, Kennedy turned with a wide grin to von Braun and grabbed his hand in congratulations. The president was apparently so captivated by von Braun’s running commentary that he took the rocket scientist—the biggest U.S. space personality outside the astronauts themselves—on the plane with him to Cape Canaveral.

At the cape, JFK visited four launchpads, including one where he got a guided tour from astronaut Wally Schirra of the Atlas rocket and Mercury capsule Schirra was set to ride into orbit in about two weeks.

Kennedy ended the day in Houston, where his popularity was on vivid display. The city’s police chief said 200,000 people—more than one in every five residents of Houston at the time—had come out to see the president, who rode in an open car from the airport to his hotel. Kennedy spent part of the next day at NASA’s temporary Houston facilities—the space center itself was under construction—including seeing a very early mock-up of the lunar module, then called “the bug.” But the emotional and political climax of Kennedy’s tour came Wednesday morning at the Rice University football stadium. In the blazing early-morning Texas heat—already 89 degree at 10 a.m., with Kennedy and his party wearing dress shirts, coats and ties—the president gave a speech designed to lift the space program up out of the political squabbles and budget bickering that was starting to beset it. “The United States was not built by those who waited and rested,” he said. “This country was conquered by those who moved forward—and so will space.”

Space didn’t just create the opportunity for knowledge and adventure, for American destiny and American values. It created an obligation to reach for the Moon, and to reach beyond.

That is the point of the most famous passage of the Rice University speech: “We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon....We choose to go to the Moon, in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

President Kennedy Rice University speech

The Rice speech took place on September 12, 1962. Ten weeks later, on November 21, in the cabinet room, Kennedy presided over a meeting about America’s space program with a very different tone. It was fractious and frustrating, driven by the president’s own impatience. He didn’t like the slow pace of the program; he didn’t like what it was costing; and he didn’t like the answers he was getting from the people gathered around the table with him, including James Webb, the NASA administrator, and his most senior lieutenants.

Ostensibly the occasion for the meeting was to hash out whether NASA and Kennedy were going to push Congress for an extra $400 million for Apollo before the next budget cycle. Not even the NASA people agreed about the wisdom of that.

The poetry of the Rice speech, the vision of the future it expressed, is nowhere to be found in the cabinet room that Wednesday. We know this because, although the meeting was private, Kennedy had a secret taping system installed in the White House, as FDR had, as LBJ would, as Nixon, most famously, would.

The recordings preserve two high-level conversations about space that reveal a very different Kennedy attitude about the race to the Moon. At the first, just ten weeks after his Rice University speech, Kennedy spent 30 minutes asking questions about NASA’s budget and spending, trying to get to the bottom of the schedule. “Gemini has slipped how much?” he asked.

To much laughter—there were nine people in the meeting besides the president, four of them space agency people all too familiar with countdowns and launches that frequently slipped—Webb responded, “This word ‘slip’ is the wrong word.” To which Kennedy says, “I’m sorry, I’ll pick another word.”

Webb had been telling Kennedy that a Moon landing was possible in late 1967, but was more likely in 1968. Kennedy wanted it sooner. How do you move it back into 1967? Would the $400 million they were there to discuss do that? How about early 1967? What would that take? Kennedy seemed puzzled that more money wouldn’t necessarily make it happen sooner.

There is a long exchange in which Kennedy tries to understand why getting $400 million extra right now would help Gemini but wasn’t likely to move Apollo any sooner. He didn’t understand the details of staged technology development, that you have to build and fly Gemini in part to help you make the right decisions about Apollo. Four months here or there over four years is hard to nail down.

Thirty minutes into the conversation, the president takes a step back. “Do you think this program is the top-priority program of the agency?” Kennedy asked Webb.

“No sir, I do not,” Webb answered without hesitation.“I think it is one of the top priority programs, but I think it’s very important to recognize here—” Webb started to explain the importance of some of NASA’s non-Moon programs. Kennedy lowered his voice and simply stepped into Webb’s conversational stream.

“Jim, I think it is the top priority. I think we ought to have that very clear. This is, whether we like it or not, in a sense a race. If we get second to the Moon, it’s nice, but it’s like being second any time. So that if we’re second by six months, because we didn’t give it the kind of priority—then of course that would be very serious.”

The president was being as clear as he possibly could. It was fine to fly to the Moon, but the point of such urgency—the tripling of NASA’s budget in just two years—was to reach the Moon before the Russians. It didn’t seem clear to the people in the White House cabinet room that day, but the only reason they were there at all was that Kennedy needed to beat the Russians. Not because he needed to fly to the Moon.

“Otherwise, we shouldn’t be spending this kind of money, because I’m not that interested in space.”

The conversation continued well after Kennedy lost patience, and left. But no one took up, or even commented on, those arresting words, which must have been quite stunning to the space people in the room: I’m not that interested in space. The man who launched the United States to the Moon, “the greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked,” as he called it at Rice, just wanted to get there before the Russians.

In 1963 the politics of going to the Moon got even more challenging than they were in 1962. Webb was worried about the scientific community, many of whom felt that a space program that sent humans into space would consume huge amounts of federal money that could be used for scientific research with more immediate value on Earth.

In April, in an editorial in the prestigious journal Science , the editor, Philip Abelson, provided precisely the cerebral, almost disdainful critique Webb had been hearing in his conversations with scientists. Abelson walked through the justifications—military value, technological innovation, scientific discovery and the propaganda value of beating the Russians—and dismissed each in turn. “Military applications seem remote,” he wrote. The technological innovations “have not been impressive.” If actual science was a goal—and no scientist was on any imagined Moon landing crew yet—“most of the interesting questions about the Moon can be studied by electronic devices,” at about 1 percent of the cost of using astronauts.

As for the worldwide prestige, “the lasting propaganda value of placing a man on the Moon has been vastly overestimated. The first lunar landing will be a great occasion; subsequent boredom is inevitable.”

On June 10, Abelson was among a group of ten scientists called to testify, over two days, before the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences about the future of Apollo. Abelson, a physicist and a key contributor to the creation of the atomic bomb, told the senators, “[The] diversion of talent to the space program is having and will have direct and indirect damaging effects on almost every area of science, technology and medicine. I believe that [Apollo] may delay the conquest of cancer and mental illness. I don’t see anything magical about this decade. The Moon has been there a long time, and will continue to be there a long time.”

Two days later, former president Dwight Eisenhower spoke to a breakfast gathering of Republican members of Congress in Washington, where he was sharply critical of Kennedy’s spending plans overall. Asked about the space budget, Eisenhower replied, “Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the Moon for national prestige is nuts.” The line drew sustained applause from the 160 Republican congressmen at the event. Leave aside that Eisenhower was going with the most extreme estimate of the Moon cost (one that didn’t come close to true in reality, even nine years later), that was the immediate past president of the United States calling the current president of the United States crazy. Headline writers from one side of America to the other loved the story, which made the front pages of dozens of newspapers with some variation of the headline “Ike Calls Moon Race ‘Nuts.’”

Moon surface

As it happens, on that day NASA announced the end of the Mercury program, the small capsules with just a single astronaut. Next up, the much more sophisticated, and much more ambitious, missions of Gemini. But the last Mercury flight was May 1963, and the first manned Gemini flight wouldn’t come until March 1965—a long time between “space spectaculars,” as Kennedy called them, to fire the public imagination, and enough time for an entire presidential and congressional election to play out without a single spaceflight.

In Congress, which was also thinking about elections coming the following year, NASA had gone from receiving near-unanimous support after Kennedy’s initial “go to the Moon” speech to being viewed as an agency where money might be harvested for other purposes.

As if to underscore the shift in public attitude, on September 13, 1963, the Saturday Evening Post , one of the widest circulation weekly magazines in the country, published a story titled “Are We Wasting Billions in Space?” On the cover the headline was just “Billions Wasted in Space,” without the question mark, a crisper summary of the story’s point. The Moon race, the story argued, had become a “boondoggle” and “a circus.”

The second recorded meeting that reveals Kennedy’s private thinking about space took place on September 18, 1963, in the Oval Office. Only President Kennedy and Jim Webb were present. On August 5, the United States, the USSR and Great Britain had signed a partial nuclear test-ban treaty, the first limits on nuclear weapons, and a major thaw in the Cold War. This meeting with Webb was long—46 minutes. The question was how to sustain Apollo during what were clearly going to be years of spending without years of excitement.

Right at the start, Kennedy said, “It’s been a couple years, and...right now, I don’t think the space program has much political excitement.”

“I agree,” said Webb. “I think this is a real problem.”

“I mean, if the Russians do some tremendous feat, then it would stimulate interest again,” continued Kennedy. “But right now, space has lost a lot of its glamour.”

The immediate cuts that congressional committees had proposed to the NASA budget would slow America’s leap to the Moon. Kennedy asked, “If we’re cut that amount...we slip a year?”

“We’ll slip at least a year,” replied Webb.

Kennedy: “If I get re-elected, we’re not going to the Moon in our period, are we?”

Webb: “No. No. You’re not going.”

Kennedy: “We’re not going...”

Webb: “You’ll fly by it.”

Webb was saying that, during Kennedy’s term, astronauts would fly around the Moon without landing, as Apollo 8 did, in fact, in December 1968, which would have been the end of the last year of Kennedy’s second term.

“It’s just going to take longer than that,” Webb said. “This is a tough job. A real tough job.”

Americans constantly questioned why we were going to the Moon when we couldn't handle our problems on Earth

It’s hard to listen to the conversation while setting aside everything we know that would come in the next ten weeks, and the next six years, and just imagine it from Kennedy’s point of view. This huge project he had set in motion. He wasn’t even done with his first term. Congressional critics weren’t just talking down the Moon landing; they were cutting the budget for the Moon landing. And Kennedy wouldn’t just have to muster the political support for Apollo through the election in a year; he was imagining having to sustain support for it through his entire next term, to which he hadn’t been re-elected yet. And even if he could do it, he wouldn’t enjoy the accomplishment during his own presidency.

It would have been a keen moment of disappointment, and you can hear it in Kennedy’s voice. It would also have been a moment of political calculation. How do you possibly hang on to a discretionary program of such enormous scale, already under fire, through four more budget cycles?

Just after that, Kennedy asked a version of the same question he had asked a year earlier: “Do you think the manned landing on the Moon’s a good idea?”

“Yes sir,” replied Webb. “I think it is.”

To Kennedy, the broader politics were simple and discouraging: “We don’t have anything coming up for the next 14 months. So I’m going into the campaign to defend this program, and we won’t have had anything for a year and a half.” He actually sounded disappointed, almost irritated by the timing of this flight gap. How could he talk with enthusiasm about space, when there were no spaceflights for anyone to be enthusiastic about?

In fact Kennedy saw only one strategy for protecting Apollo, an extension of the very first reasoning behind the Moon race. “I want to get the military shield over this thing,” he said, meaning, he wanted to be able to argue that manned spaceflight had explicit national security and defense value.

Webb went deep into the budget negotiations with Kennedy, talking about congressmen by name, but he also pulled back to remind the president of the incredible power of this kind of exploration and science for the life of Americans, for understanding how the world works, and also for the practical value of technology development, and for inspiring American students to pursue science and engineering. “The younger folks see this much better than my generation,” Webb said, having visited high schools and colleges around the country. He was talking about all the things that made Americans nervous after Sputnik, all the things Kennedy himself so forcefully argued in his Rice University speech. The lunar landing, said Webb, is “one of the most important things that’s been done in this nation.” What will come from going to the Moon will be “staggering things in terms of the development of the human intellect.”

The NASA chief concluded, “I predict you are not going to be sorry—ever—that you did this.”

On Thursday, October 10, 1963, the House passed the slimmed down $5.1 billion NASA budget—$600 million less than Kennedy requested, at least $200 million less than Webb had said was necessary to stay on track for a Moon landing within the decade. That seemed to be sending an ominous signal about the fading sense of congressional urgency and enthusiasm for reaching the Moon by the end of the decade.

So if John Kennedy had not been assassinated, would Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have stepped off the ladder of the lunar module Eagle onto the Moon on July 20, 1969?

It seems unlikely.

President Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral for the third time, on November 16, flying up from where he was spending the weekend in Palm Beach, for two hours of briefings and touring. He got to see the Saturn I rocket on its launchpad, the rocket that would, a month later, finally put into orbit a payload larger than anything the Russians could launch. “It will give the United States the largest booster in the world and show significant progress in space,” the president said. The Saturn I was scheduled to launch in December; it ended up being launched successfully on January 29, 1964, sending ten tons into Earth orbit in a milestone considered so significant that the midday event was carried live by the TV networks.

After a brief return to Washington, Kennedy headed to Texas the following Thursday, November 21, to make appearances in San Antonio, then Houston, followed by Fort Worth and Dallas. In San Antonio he dedicated a new Air Force research center devoted to aerospace medicine. He commented on how valuable space medical research would prove: “Medicine in space is going to make our lives healthier and happier here on Earth.” He told the audience how impressed he was with the Saturn rocket he had seen the previous Saturday. There will be “pressures in this country to do less in this area as in so many others, and temptations to do something else that is perhaps easier. But...the conquest of space must and will go ahead.” He didn’t mention landing on the Moon.

In the speech that had been written for him to give in Dallas at the Dallas Trade Mart—the speech he was on the way to deliver when he was shot—Kennedy would have talked with pride about reinvigorating the U.S. space program. Under his administration, the nation was spending more money on space each year than the entire space budget for the decade of the Fifties; 130 U.S. spacecraft had been put in orbit, including invaluable and innovative weather and communications satellites, “making it clear to all that the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space.” Space was a source of “national strength.”

Kennedy hadn’t planned to say a word that afternoon about going to the Moon.

From the evidence at hand, it’s actually hard to imagine Kennedy making the Moon landing itself a cornerstone of his second term. He had lots of other things he wanted to do.

But none of that happened, because Kennedy was killed on Friday, November 22, 1963.

Six days later President Lyndon B. Johnson announced, in his somber Thanksgiving Day address to the nation, that he was renaming the space center in Florida the John F. Kennedy Space Center and renaming the piece of land it sat on Cape Kennedy. In a brief meeting the day before, Jacqueline Kennedy had asked Johnson to do that, and he had agreed.

Before noon on the Friday after Thanksgiving, not even 18 hours after Johnson’s announcement, painters hung a sign with the new name on it over the southern security gate for Kennedy Space Center.

Johnson and Agnew at Kennedy Space Center

On January 21, 1964, President Johnson submitted to Congress his budget for the next year, proposing to cut overall federal spending from Kennedy’s previous budget by $500 million, including cuts to defense, agriculture, veterans affairs and the post office. But Johnson raised spending for NASA to $5.3 billion, along with a request to immediately add back $141 million for the year already under way. Whatever Kennedy’s long-term space strategy had been, his death changed the political calculation, in space as in so many other arenas. Johnson, unlike Kennedy, was an authentic believer in the space program. In announcing the NASA budget, he reaffirmed his determination to get the nation to the Moon by 1970. “No matter how brilliant our scientists and engineers, how farsighted our planners and managers, or how frugal our administrators and contracting personnel, we cannot reach this goal without adequate funds,” Johnson said. “There is no second-class ticket to space.”

By March 1964 the most sophisticated spaceship ever conceived was well along in its design. The Apollo lunar module would carry two astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface, be their base of operations on the Moon, then rocket them back to orbit and rendezvous with the command module. The lunar module—known as the “lem,” abbreviated LM—was being designed and built on Long Island, at the same factory where, 20 years earlier, Grumman Corporation had produced 12,275 Hellcat fighters for World War II.

As Grumman conceived the lunar module, it was a two-stage spacecraft; the full ship would land on the Moon, but only the small upper stage and crew compartment would blast off from the Moon and return the astronauts to the command module, in orbit. So the lunar module had two rocket engines, a big one to land the ship, and a smaller one to blast the crew compartment back into orbit. Each of those rocket engines weighed less than the engine in a typical midsize car—and each was a marvel. The descent engine could be throttled: powerful thrust to bring the lunar module down to the Moon from orbit, and lower thrust to allow the LM to hover near the surface of the Moon while the astronauts picked a final landing spot. No rocket engine before had ever had variable power. The smaller engine, which would return the astronauts to the command module, absolutely had to work when the launch command was given. If it didn’t ignite, the astronauts were trapped on the Moon. So the ascent engine was a study in simplicity to reduce the number of ways it could fail.

The lunar module would have sophisticated navigation, electronics and life-support systems, and it would also have storage lockers for bringing home Moon rocks. By 1964, the design was already evolving. The cabin had already been refined to accommodate bulky spacesuits; the seats had been eliminated, and the windows made smaller, to reduce weight; the LM had gone from having five legs, which would have provided maximum stability, to having four legs, which allowed room for bigger fuel tanks.

lunar module diptych

The LM was, in fact, perhaps the strangest flying craft ever created. It was the first, and remains the only, manned spacecraft designed solely for use off Earth. It would never have to fly through an atmosphere, so it didn’t need the structural robustness that would require. It also didn’t need to be aerodynamic. It would only fly in space, and then it would be left in space or on the Moon’s surface.

The lunar module’s other significant challenge was that it could never be test-flown before being used for its critical role. There’s no place on Earth to take a spaceship designed for flight in a zero-gravity vacuum and fly it around. So the people who would pilot the lunar modules to the Moon never practiced flying them, except in simulators, which were designed and built by people who had never flown a lunar module.

In the end, Grumman manufactured 14 flight-ready lunar modules. The company that during World War II had been able to produce 14 Hellcat fighter planes a day needed a decade to produce 14 spaceships. That’s a measure of the learning curve, to be sure, but also a measure of the difference in complexity between a high-performance warplane and a high-performance spacecraft.

Ten of the flight-ready lunar modules Grumman built flew in space, and six of those landed on the Moon. The total cost of the lunar modules was $1.6 billion ($11 billion in 2019 dollars); each one cost $110 million, although by the time lunar modules were flying to the Moon, Grumman said it could produce a new one for just $40 million, if anyone wanted one.

Given how novel the machine was, and how novel its flight profile was, one thing that’s surprising is how little the astronauts talked about the experience of actually flying it. When you read the mission transcripts during the time astronauts were in the lunar module and flying it, the experience itself is so demanding and so absorbing that there’s almost no idle time and no idle exchanges with Mission Control.

Neil Armstrong, just after descending to the Moon in Apollo 11’s LM, said, “The Eagle has wings.”* And as Pete Conrad and Alan Bean rocketed back off the Moon in Apollo 12, in the lunar module they had given the call sign Intrepid, Conrad radioed perhaps the only line that the folks at Grumman, or the lunar modules themselves, needed: “I tell you, Houston, I sure do enjoy flying this thing.”

For the first Moonwalk ever, Sonny Reihm was inside NASA’s Mission Control building, watching every move on the big screen. Reihm was a supervisor for the most important Moon technology after the lunar module itself: the spacesuits, the helmets, the Moonwalk boots. And as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got comfortable bouncing around on the Moon and got to work, Reihm got more and more uncomfortable.

Buzz Aldrin exits the Eagle

The spacesuits themselves were fine. They were the work of Playtex, the folks who brought America the “Cross Your Heart Bra” in the mid-1950s. Playtex had sold the skill of its industrial division to NASA in part with the cheeky observation that the company had a lot of expertise developing clothing that had to be flexible as well as form-fitting.

It was when the cavorting started on the Moon that Reihm got butterflies in his stomach. Aldrin had spent half an hour bumping around in his spacesuit, with his big round helmet, when all of a sudden, here he came bounding from foot to foot like a kid at a playground, right at the video camera he and Armstrong had set up at the far side of their landing site.

Aldrin was romping straight at the world, growing larger and larger, and he was talking about how he’d discovered that you have to watch yourself when you start bouncing around, because you couldn’t quite trust your sense of balance in Moon gravity; you might get going too fast, lose your footing, and end up on your belly, skidding along the rocky lunar ground.

“You do have to be rather careful to keep track of where your center of mass is,” Aldrin said, as if his fellow Earthlings might soon find this Moonwalk advice useful. “Sometimes, it takes about two or three paces to make sure you’ve got your feet underneath you.”

Suddenly, Aldrin came dashing in from the left, straight across the landing site, Moon dirt flying from his boots

Reihm should have been having the most glorious moment of his career. By the time of the Moon landing, before he turned 30, he had become the Apollo project manager inside Playtex. His team’s blazing white suits were taking men on their first walk on another world. They were a triumph of technology and imagination, not to mention politics and persistence. The spacesuits were completely self-contained spacecraft, with room for just one. They had been tested and tweaked and custom-tailored. But what happened on Earth really didn’t matter, did it—that’s what Reihm was thinking. If Aldrin should trip and land hard on a Moon rock, well, a tear in the suit wouldn’t be a seamstress’s problem. It would be a disaster. The suit would deflate instantly, catastrophically, and the astronaut would die, on TV, in front of the world.

The TV camera, set up on a tripod, would have a perfect view. Aldrin ran left, planted his left leg, then cut to the right like an NFL running back dodging tacklers. He did kangaroo hops right past the American flag, but announced that this wasn’t a good way of moving around. “Your forward mobility is not quite as good as it is in the more conventional one foot after another,” he said. Then he disappeared from view.

By this time Reihm could barely contain his fretfulness. “That silly bastard is out there running all over the place,” he thought.

Seconds ticked by. The Moon base was quiet. Armstrong was working by the lunar module, his back to the camera. Suddenly Aldrin came dashing in from the left, straight across the landing site, Moon dirt flying from his boots. He was doing a Moon run: “As far as saying what a sustained pace might be, I think the one that I’m using now would get rather tiring after several hundred feet.”

Reihm was in a technical support room adjacent to Mission Control, with a group of spacesuit staff, standing by in case anything went wrong. Even though the whole point of the spacesuits was to explore the Moon, Reihm couldn’t wait for it to end.

Reihm’s worries weren’t unique to him. Eleanor Foraker had supervised the women who sewed the spacesuits, each painstakingly stitched by hand. When the jumping around started, she started thinking about the pressure garment, one of the inner layers of the spacesuit that sealed the astronaut against the vacuum of space. What if all that hopping and tugging caused a leak?

Joe Kosmo was one of the spacesuit designers on the NASA side. He was at home, watching with his family, thinking exactly the same thing Reihm was: “This is great. I hope he doesn’t fall over.”

Reihm knew, of course, that the astronauts were just out there “euphorically enjoying what they were doing.” If the world was excited about the Moon landing, imagine being the two guys who got to do it. In fact, according to the flight plan, right after the landing, Armstrong and Aldrin were scheduled for a five-hour nap. They told Mission Control they wanted to ditch the nap, suit up and go outside. They hadn’t flown all the way to the Moon in order to sleep.

And there really wasn’t anything to worry about. The spacesuits were marvels: 21 layers of nested fabric, strong enough to stop a micrometeorite, but still flexible enough for Aldrin’s kangaroo hops and quick cuts.

Aldrin footprint on the Moon

Still, watching Aldrin dash around, Reihm could “think of nothing but, Please go back up that ladder and get back into the safety of that lunar module. When [they] went back up that ladder and shut that door, it was the happiest moment of my life. It wasn’t until quite a while later that I reveled over the accomplishment.”

The Apollo 11 spaceship that carried Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong from the Earth to the Moon was big: The command and service module and the lunar module, docked nose-to-nose, was 53 feet long. When Collins fired the service module engine to settle into orbit around the Moon—the big engine ran for 357.5 seconds to slow the ship, six long minutes—there was already another spaceship in orbit around the Moon waiting for them. It had arrived two days earlier, from the Soviet Union.

Luna 15 was a Russian unmanned robotic craft that was at the Moon on a mysterious mission. It was certainly no coincidence that at the moment the United States was getting ready to land people on the Moon’s surface, with the whole world watching, the Russians had decided to have a spacecraft at the Moon. Luna 15 had been launched on Sunday, July 13, before the Wednesday launch of Apollo 11, and the Russians said it was simply going to “conduct further scientific exploration of the Moon and space near the Moon.”

But from the moment of Luna 15’s launch, U.S. space scientists and NASA officials speculated that it was a “scooping” mission, designed to land on the Moon, extend a robotic arm, scoop up some soil and rocks, and deposit them in a compartment on the spacecraft, which would then zoom back to Earth and maybe, just maybe, arrive back on Russian soil with its cargo before the Apollo 11 astronauts could make it home.

Frank Borman, the commander of the Apollo 8 mission that had orbited the Moon, had just returned from a nine-day goodwill tour of Russia—the first visit by a U.S. astronaut to the Soviet Union—and appeared on the NBC news show “Meet the Press” the morning of Luna 15’s launch. “I would guess it’s probably an effort” to bring back a soil sample, Borman said. “I heard references to that effect [in Russia].”

NASA, at least publicly, was mostly concerned that Russian communications with Luna 15 might interfere with Apollo 11. In an unprecedented move, Chris Kraft, the head of Mission Control, asked Borman to call Soviet contacts from his just-finished trip and see if they would supply data on Luna 15. The Soviets promptly sent a telegram—one copy to the White House, one copy to Borman’s home near the Manned Spacecraft Center—with details of Luna 15’s orbit and assurances that if the spacecraft changed orbits, fresh telegrams would follow. It was the first time in the 12 years of space travel that the world’s two space programs had communicated directly with each other about spaceflights in progress. At a press conference, Kraft said Luna 15 and the Apollo spacecraft would not come anywhere near each other.

Luna 15, at least to start, succeeded in making sure the Soviet Union’s space program wasn’t overlooked while Apollo 11 dominated the news worldwide. The Soviet mission made the front pages of newspapers around the world. At the time, NASA and the public never did find out what Luna 15 was up to. Now we know it was a well-planned effort to upstage Apollo 11, or at least be onstage alongside the U.S. Moon landing, according to documents released and research done since the breakup of the Soviet Union and thanks to the rich and detailed history of the Soviet space program written by historian Asif Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo .

When Luna 15 arrived in lunar orbit on July 17, two days ahead of Apollo 11, Siddiqi says, Russian space officials were surprised “by the ruggedness of the lunar terrain” where it was headed, and that the craft’s altimeter “showed wildly varying readings for the projected landing area.” As Armstrong and Aldrin stepped out onto the lunar surface, Luna 15 was still swooping around the Moon, and engineers back in the Soviet Union were still trying to find a landing site they had confidence in.

Two hours before the Eagle, with Armstrong and Aldrin aboard, blasted off the Moon, Luna 15 fired its retrorockets and aimed for touchdown. The legendary British radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, presided over by Sir Bernard Lovell, was listening in real time to the transmissions of both Apollo 11 and Luna 15. And Jodrell Bank was the first to report the fate of Luna 15. Its radio signals ended abruptly. “If we don’t get any more signals,” said Lovell, “we will assume it crash-landed.” Luna 15 was aiming for a site in the Sea of Crises, about 540 miles northeast of Eagle’s spot in the Sea of Tranquillity.

The Soviet news agency Tass reported that Luna 15 had fired its retrorockets and “left orbit and reached the Moon’s surface in the preset area.” Its “program of research...was completed.”

Despite taking almost a whole extra day to figure out the terrain issues, Soviet space scientists apparently missed a mountain in the Sea of Crises. On its way to the “preset area,” Luna 15, traveling 300 miles per hour, slammed into the side of that mountain.

USS Hornet

At about 1:15 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the Apollo astronauts woke from a 10-hour rest period and were 12 hours into their 60-hour ride back from the Moon. As they got started on their day, astronaut Bruce McCandless, Mission Control’s official Capsule Communicator, radioed, “Apollo 11, this is Houston. If you’re not busy now, I can read you up the morning news.”

Replied Aldrin, “Okay, We’re all listening.”

A lot of the news was about Apollo 11. Reported McCandless, “Things have been relatively quiet recently in Vietnam. G.I.s on patrol were observed carrying transistor radios tuned to your flight.”

About one-third of the way through McCandless’ space newscast, slipped in between telling the astronauts that President Nixon would head to Romania after meeting them onboard their recovery aircraft carrier, and the Vietnam news, McCandless reported, “Luna 15 is believed to have crashed into the Sea of Crises yesterday after orbiting the Moon 52 times.”

If ever there was a moment that captured the crushing reversal in the performance of the world’s two space programs, that was it: Mission Control matter-of-factly reporting the crash-landing of the Soviet Union’s somewhat flailing robotic attempt to collect Moon rocks to the three American astronauts flying home from the first human landing on the Moon, with 47.5 pounds of Moon rocks.

C opyright © 2019 by Charles Fishman. From the forthcoming book ONE GIANT LEAP: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission.

*Editor's Note, June 19, 2019: An earlier version of this piece noted that Neil Armstrong said "The Eagle has wings" after blasting off from the Moon. In fact, he actually uttered that phrase just after the lunar module descended to the Moon. The story has been edited to correct that fact.

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Charles Fishman | | READ MORE

Charles Fishman writes about business and finance, natural resources, and space exploration. He is the author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water and The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works – and How It’s Transforming the American Economy . His new book is One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon .

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Countdown to a new era in space

Fifty years ago this month, astronauts walked on the moon for the first time. Apollo 11’s success—just 66 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight—showcased humankind’s moxie and ingenuity. Now the moon is in our sights again, for a generation that will test where science meets profit.

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T MINUS 5: PIONEERS

Animals were our first space travelers, clearing the way for astronauts who became famous—and for lesser known heroes..

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Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong— the first wave of space travelers —were military-trained astronauts thought to have the “right stuff” for risky missions.

But early spaceflight wasn’t the exclusive province of men— or even humans . Fruit flies, monkeys, mice, dogs, rabbits, and rats flew into space before humans.

More than three years before Gagarin became the first human in space with his April 1961 journey around Earth, the Soviets famously—or perhaps infamously—sent up a stray dog. Laika was the first animal to orbit Earth but died during her flight. The United States launched a chimpanzee named Ham into space. Happily, he survived, clearing the way for Shepard to became the first American in space in May 1961.

vintage era television showing a black and white sputnik

Despite discrimination, women were also pioneers . Some, such as mathematician Katherine Johnson—who hand-calculated the details of the trajectory of the flight that would make Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962—stayed behind the scenes. Valentina Tereshkova, an early cosmonaut, became the first woman in orbit in 1963. It wasn’t until two decades later that Sally Ride flew on the space shuttle Challenger to become the first American woman to reach space.

T MINUS 4: GETTING THERE

Early rocketeers figured that a multistage launcher could propel humans to the moon. the saturn v did that—and set the stage for the future..

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A bespectacled, bearded Russian recluse fond of science fiction, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky believed humanity’s destiny lay among the stars. By the early 1900s, he had worked out the equation for humans to slip beyond Earth’s gravitational pull. He also imagined how moon-bound rockets would work : using a mix of liquid propellants and igniting multiple stages.

Independently, Hermann Oberth and Robert Goddard reached similar conclusions. By 1926, Goddard, an American, had built and launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. About that time, Oberth, who lived in Germany, determined multiple stages are crucial for long journeys.

Four decades later, the trio’s ideas roared to life in the enormous Saturn V rockets that thrust Apollo crews into space. Measuring 363 feet tall and fueled by liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, and kerosene, the Saturn V was the most powerful rocket ever built. Engineered by Wernher von Braun—a Nazi Germany rocket scientist who relocated much of his team to work for the U.S. after World War II—the Saturn V had three stages that fired in sequence. Rocketry is still governed by Tsiolkovsky’s equation. But no rocket has yet eclipsed the Saturn V, which propelled humans closer to the stars than ever before.

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Five bell-shaped engines powered the initial stage of the Saturn V rocket, which shot most of the Apollo missions beyond Earth’s orbit and eventually carried astronauts to the moon. Together the five engines generated as much energy as 85 Hoover dams.

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T MINUS 3: WHERE WE WENT

Apollo missions focused on the moon's near side. now uncrewed probes are revealing more about the moon and beyond..

the shadowed moon with the earth small in the background in black and white

In the 1960s our moon was still very much a mystery. To learn the most from the Apollo visits, NASA selected landing sites in a variety of lunar terrains, including the dark, flat plains sculpted by vanished lava oceans and highlands formed by meteor impacts.

From 1969 to 1972, U.S. astronauts landed at six sites, each chosen for different scientific objectives. All of them were on the moon’s mottled near side, where the terrain had been studied extensively by lunar orbiters and Mission Control could remain in direct contact with the astronauts.

Space agencies have sent probes, with no people on them and thus no need to worry about human safety, to visit far-flung places in the solar system. Spacecraft have explored 60 other moons and even set down on one, Saturn’s Titan . On our own moon, robotic rovers have left tracks at four sites.

China made history earlier this year by setting its Chang’e 4 lander on the moon’s far side .

The first private lander to reach the moon crashed in April , but the Israeli nonprofit behind it quickly announced plans to try again.

Not to be outdone , the U.S. intends to send a series of landers with technology to lay the groundwork for astronauts to return.

T MINUS 2: WHAT WE TOOK

Astronauts collected rocks, pebbles, soil, and dust. they also took personal items to space that reflected their interests, beliefs, and passions..

a small black and grey rock on a pedestal in a silver and glass container

Over four years, NASA astronauts hauled 842 pounds of moon rocks back to Earth. But the most profound souvenirs weigh nothing: images of Earth. Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders snapped an iconic one on Christmas Eve in 1968, showing our blue planet suspended in darkness near the moon’s sterile, cratered horizon.

Astronauts didn’t just take photos and collect moon rocks, they also carried an array of objects from Earth into space with them.

earth on a film strip

One of NASA’s most requested space photos, this view of Earth, known as Blue Marble, was taken in 1972 from about 18,000 miles away, as Apollo 17 was traveling to the moon.

John Young (Gemini 3) notoriously smuggled aboard a corned beef sandwich and shared it with Gus Grissom, his crewmate. Grissom pocketed it when crumbs began to float around the cabin.

Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) took wine, bread, and a chalice to celebrate Communion. His crewmate Neil Armstrong carried a piece of the Wright Flyer’s wooden propeller. Alan Shepard (Apollo 14) used a sock to hide a six-iron clubhead, which he attached to a tool handle to hit two golf balls on the moon. Charles Duke (Apollo 16) packed a family photo and left it in the Descartes highlands.

a silver and gold harmonica with "Little Lady" inscribed on black

After landing on the moon, Buzz Aldrin drank consecrated wine from this three-inch goblet, which is still used by his former church near Houston.

Perhaps the most poignant memento on the lunar surface is a small aluminum human figure, placed there by David Scott during Apollo 15. It rests near a placard bearing the names of 14 fallen astronauts and cosmonauts.

T MINUS 1: IN POP CULTURE

From tv shows to movies, toys, food, and the way we express ourselves, space continues to have a hold on our imagination..

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As the space race boomed, it catapulted its aspirations into the zeitgeist—and transformed the way we live.

Sputnik inspired replicas and songs. Life magazine published exclusive stories on the lives of the celebrated Mercury Seven, the United States’ first astronauts. Seattle built the Space Needle for the World’s Fair. Stanley Kubrick created 2001: A Space Odyssey. The space age flourished in movies, TV, music, architecture, and design, where the sleek, aerodynamic lines of rockets inspired the look of cars and trains.

Space is still lodged in popular culture. The NASA logo appears everywhere, from tattoos to Vans high-tops. We’ve had Star Trek, The Jetsons, Mork & Mindy, Star Wars, and the current spate of Mars movies and space-themed TV shows. Also: the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets, Space Camp, antigravity ballpoint pens, astronaut ice cream, the moonwalk, and Space Mountain.

a sleek silver car on a black background

Billed as “the first space age–inspired car,” the Firebird III, built by General Motors, was powered by a gas turbine engine and sported seven fins. The 1958 concept car had a computer, electronic controls, and a joystick to accelerate, brake, and steer.

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Concepts like “the right stuff,” “moon shot,” and “light-years” figure into everyday conversation. Your first day back after vacation might be filled with “reentry” problems. Your craft-brewed IPA might taste like “rocket fuel” or even use those words as its name. And, on discovering a distressing situation, you might calmly say, “Houston, we have a problem.”

LIFTOFF!: WHAT'S NEXT

It may seem as if we've been going nowhere for decades. but a new age of space travel is coming, mixing exploration with a race for profits..

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When human beings stepped on the moon 50 years ago this month , it was one of history’s most astounding moments, and not just because our first visit to another world was among humanity’s greatest scientific achievements or because it was the culmination of an epic race between two global superpowers, though both were true. The New York Times put a poem by Archibald MacLeish on the front page, and newscaster Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” would come to say that people living 500 years in the future would regard the lunar landing as “the most important feat of all time.”

The ultimate significance, however, was not that the race had ended or even that a once unimaginable milestone had been attained.

This achievement was really just the beginning.

The beginning of a new era in humanity’s vision of its horizons, of the places we could explore and might even inhabit. Having started as a landfaring species, expanded our reach to the entire planet when we became seafaring, and conquered the atmosphere above Earth when powered flight made us skyfarers, we were now destined to be pilgrims in a vast new realm. We were spacefarers—and soon, as this seminal triumph helped us get over what celebrated scientist and writer Isaac Asimov called our “planetary chauvinism,” we would become an extraplanetary species. “Earthlings” would no longer be sufficient to describe who we were.

All this is what was widely expected, amid the euphoria and wonder on July 20, 1969, when Eagle, Apollo 11’s lunar module, touched down on the moon’s surface. The greatest journey starts with a single step. A small step for one man; a giant leap for all of humankind.

The head of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Thomas O. Paine, was soon aiming for Mars, and not just as a someday goal but with a detailed itinerary laid out in National Geographic. Depart: October 3, 1983. Crew of 12, split between two 250-foot-long spacecraft fired by nuclear rockets. Enter Mars orbit: June 9, 1984. Eighty days of exploration on the Martian surface. Return to Earth orbit: May 25, 1985.

The very act of reaching the moon somehow exalted the human race, yielding confidence that we would indeed push deeper into space. “Wherever we went, people, instead of saying, ‘Well, you Americans did it,’ everywhere they said, ‘We did it!’ ” recalled Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11’s command module. “We humankind, we the human race, we people did it.”

a black an orange space suit on black

Sunrise is still a few hours away, and as the bus cuts a lonely path through miles of remote steppe in southern Kazakhstan, its headlights occasionally illuminate for the briefest of moments a giant faded mural or a chipped tile mosaic. These stylized works of art show the ravages of baking summers and bitter winters. They adorn huge, rusting, abandoned buildings, and they celebrate the decades-old glories of a space program in a nation that no longer exists: the Soviet Union.

Finally, after miles of this Twilight Zone landscape of Cold War detritus, the bus makes a sudden turn down a gated lane and arrives at a giant, banged-up structure that is definitely not abandoned. Well-armed Russian and Kazakh security officers in camouflage gear seem to have the place surrounded, and it’s bathed in floodlights. Inside this hangar is a gleaming new rocket ship.

I’ve come to the Baikonur Cosmodrome because, just shy of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s the only place on the planet where I can watch a human blast off to space. In turn, the only place in the universe these people can fly to is the International Space Station, some 250 miles above Earth, which is barely one-thousandth of the distance to the moon.

For the past eight years, ever since NASA retired the space shuttle, the only way it has been able to get an American astronaut to the space station has been to hitch a ride with its Russian counterpart, known as Roscosmos, at roughly $82 million for a seat up and back down.

Fifty years on from the moon landing, this is where we are in space, if by “we,” we mean human beings. Which sure sounds like basically nowhere, at least as measured by the yardstick of 1969’s great expectations. Twelve people—all Americans, all men—have stepped on the moon, none since 1972, and other than on Earth-​​orbiting space stations, no human has set foot anywhere else in the universe.

Measured another way, of course, we’re doing extraordinary things in space.

We’ve sent uncrewed probes to explore all the other planets in our solar system, yielding astonishing photographs and troves of data. The twin Voyager spacecraft have literally sped across the solar system and into interstellar space, the first human-made objects ever to do so. They’re more than 11 billion miles away and still communicating with us.

Because the Voyagers could travel forever into the void and both the sun and the Earth have an expiration date (don’t worry, it’s a ways off), it’s conceivable that one day these sedan-size eternal sojourners will be the only evidence that we ever existed. Yet it’s also conceivable that a successor species to us will have long gone interstellar by then, hopefully granting us some recognition for their feat.

And if they do, they may well point to this moment in time—the late 2010s, the early 2020s—as the “inflection shift,” which is how Jim Keravala, a physicist who has overseen satellite launches on Russian, European, and U.S. rockets, characterizes the frenzy of activity in the commercial space industry today.

We are, Keravala says, at the dawn of “the true beginning of the era of space settlement and humanity’s future off-world.” (Keravala now heads OffWorld, a company that intends to deploy millions of robots to turn the inner solar system into a “better, gentler, greener place for life and civilization.”)

Keravala’s intriguing prediction is highly debatable, in part because that old industry chestnut—“space is hard”—happens to be true; setbacks and delays are virtually always part of the march to progress.

But it’s undeniable that something big is going on in space. Two U.S. companies, SpaceX and Boeing, are moving closer to certification of their spaceship models, putting NASA “on the precipice of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil,” in the words of NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. These ships—which are to Apollo’s cramped modules as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner is to a prop-driven airliner of the 1950s—may carry out crewed missions by late this year or early next year.

Meanwhile, spacecraft built for two other private companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, have also made major strides, bringing us ever closer to a novel era of space tourism. To begin, they will shoot well-heeled customers up to an elevation of 60-odd miles, to the edge of outer space, where the clientele will experience zero-gravity weightlessness and see the black void of the universe and the blue curvature of the Earth. All this can be yours for a mere $200,000 or so at present—though both companies say prices will drop rapidly and options expand as they bring more rocket ships on line.

Blue Origin is also shaking up the race to put humans back on the moon, announcing in May that it’s building a lander named Blue Moon. The robotic vehicle will be able to haul up to seven tons of cargo and could put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024.

The action in space is hardly confined to American companies or Russia’s program. In January, China boasted that it “opened a new chapter” in lunar exploration by soft-landing an uncrewed spaceship on the far side of the moon, the first time a vehicle had ever touched down there. That spacecraft deployed a rover bearing a “mini-biosphere,” designed to test whether fruit flies and a variety of plants and seeds can work together to create food in lunar conditions. China announced in April that it intends to build a research station on the moon’s south polar region within the next decade, although the nation’s space agency remains mum about how soon it might try to land “taikonauts,” as its astronauts are known, on the lunar surface.

In Israel, which sees itself as a plucky “start-up nation,” there were both cheers and tears in April, when a nonprofit consortium called SpaceIL made history as the first private concern to orbit the moon. But its bid to make Israel the fourth country to soft-land an object there had a hard ending: SpaceIL’s small spacecraft called Beresheet (Hebrew for Genesis, or “in the beginning”) instead crashed on the lunar surface and lost contact with mission control.

In remote New Zealand, from a launchpad adjacent to a giant sheep pasture, a company called Rocket Lab is sending innovative, low-cost rockets bearing satellites into low Earth orbit.

At the edge of Dubai, where Emirates airline has forged a massive global crossroads for air travelers out of once empty desert, an entirely new and even more colossal airport under construction is being billed as the world’s first “cosmotropolis.” Authorities say it will be capable of handling rocket ships and hyper- and supersonic aircraft as well as conventional jet airliners.

And in Japan, JAXA, the official space agency, announced in March that it was working with Toyota to develop a crewed moon rover that would enable astronauts to travel 6,000 miles on the lunar surface.

a man looking through the window of a section of a space shuttle

Much of today’s rocketry is fueled by an intense competition among a few superbillionaires whose ambitions (and egos) appear to be out of this world.

Their spacecraft are different from yesteryear’s because they are not being developed purely for scientific exploration. These spacecraft are intended to make money by fulfilling the expensive wishes of wannabe astronauts or harvesting valuable resources through mining on asteroids; by flying people quickly between any two points on Earth; and indeed, as Keravala suggests, by ultimately making us a multi-planetary species.

Many of these space titans have a clear vision of where they’re taking the rest of us, but collectively we have barely begun to discuss the ethics—or wisdom—of it all. If, as the relentless evangelist for space and commerce Jeff Bezos has insisted, the solar system can easily support “a trillion humans,” among whom we would have “a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts,” should we then heed the Amazon founder’s call to go forth and multiply in the firmament? (And if so, will Amazon Prime deliver?)

At the same time, there is something very curious about the lofty slogans, visions, and mission statements that private space companies feature in their promotional materials: Many contend that going to space is actually about … saving the Earth—and making it a better place.

“We open space to change the world for good” (Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire Richard Branson). “To preserve Earth … we must go to space to tap its unlimited resources and energy” (Blue Origin, Bezos’s company). “We open access to space to improve life on Earth” (Rocket Lab). “Imagine most journeys taking less than 30 minutes, with access to anywhere in the world in an hour or less” (SpaceX, brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, who says space travel will make such Earth-to-Earth trips feasible).

Why are we in space? Fifty years ago, it was easy to answer the question. To reach the moon! Sure, discovery, generally; and national prestige, specifically. To issue a grand proclamation of goodwill: “We came in peace for all mankind.” Everybody knew the point was to step on the moon, return safely, and crow about it.

Ask that question today, however, and you may get any of a dozen answers. These are worth examining, because you can’t explore whether we should be in space without a sense of what we are doing there—or aiming to do.

Much of today’s rocketry is fueled by an intense competition among a few superbillionaires whose ambitions are not purely scientific: Their spacecraft are intended to make money.

Outside the hangar in Kazakhstan, I step off the bus along with the rest of my group—a large crop of reporters, mostly Russians and a few Canadians. We stand around and stomp our feet for a while, as it’s cold on this early December day—seven degrees Fahrenheit with a rattling wind that has a well-below-zero feel to it.

We are at the edge of a security barrier—my group on this side, wielding cameras and notebooks, the security guys on the other side, gripping guns and speaking purposefully into walkie-talkies tucked into the shoulders of their uniforms. The rocket ship is on its side on a flatbed railcar, four conical boosters at the base of a white cylinder, with a brightly painted Russian flag at the top. As it sounds a low whistle, the train slowly pulls out, headed to the launchpad a few miles away.

There’s some drama to the launch because the previous one, in October, was aborted just 57 miles up when a sensor malfunction prompted the crew capsule to separate from the rocket and booster assembly. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin averted disaster with a harrowing emergency landing.

“The crew was lucky,” Anne McClain, an Army lieutenant colonel, Iraq war veteran, and helicopter pilot, explained in a NASA-TV news conference. “But every crew that makes it to orbit is lucky. Spaceflight’s not easy.”

McClain should know: A NASA astronaut, she’s on the launch I’m at the Cosmodrome to see.

Now Roscosmos says the problem is fixed and this Soyuz rocket launch will be trouble free. And indeed, from behind a glass wall in a special quarantine zone, McClain and the other two crew members are telling us—in English, in Russian, and in French—that they share that faith. Thumbs-up all around. A Russian Orthodox priest, as is customary these days, blesses the crew and the ship with holy water in two brief but solemn ceremonies; he even blesses the assembled reporters, a touch I cannot help but appreciate in this era of relentless attacks on the free press.

At Baikonur, reporters witness a launch from a distance of just under a mile, which is significantly closer than at Cape Canaveral, where they are kept about three miles away. It’s a mesmerizing and profound spectacle: the huge burst of orange flame at the rocket’s base on ignition, the engine roar, the rumbling, shaking ground. The awe I feel is intensified by the knowledge that at the very tip of the ship, three of my fellow human beings are trusting that all will be well as they are shot straight up into the sky.

The number of human beings living in space is about to double—from three to six. In less than three weeks the three already at the space station would come home, and the human census beyond Earth’s atmosphere—on the moon, on all the other planets in the solar system, on all those other moons, on asteroids, and in or on the many things that humankind has built and launched into orbit over six decades—would drop back down to three. The other 7.6 billion or so of us? We’re still earthbound.

Thomas O. Paine, NASA’s chief in 1969, thought we’d have set foot on Mars and the moons of Jupiter by now. His prediction still may come true—by the 100th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Soon, however, the United States could have not one but two American-made options for getting astronauts to space, finally severing NASA’s sole dependence on Russian Soyuz rockets. These new spaceships are a first step toward much longer range missions: to the moon, to asteroids, and even to Mars.

And so, a few months after the surprisingly moving, even mystical experience of watching the Soyuz liftoff, I find myself some 170 feet above the ground on a gorgeous blue-sky Florida day, the Atlantic Ocean sparkling a half mile away.

I’m at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, atop Space Launch Complex 41, whose history dates to 1965, when it began launching Titan rockets for the space programs that preceded Apollo. It’s eventually going to launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, which will carry as many as five passengers at a time to the International Space Station.

The first thing I notice after stepping off the elevator are four parallel zip lines leading to the ground at the very edge of the launch complex.

“If you’re an astronaut, you really, really don’t want to be taking that ride,” says Tony Taliancich, director and general manager of launch operations for ULA, a launch alliance that is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Taliancich, imposingly built but perpetually smiling during my tour of his bailiwick, explains that these 1,300-foot-long zip lines are a critical part of the escape system, in case a last-minute explosion, fire, or other emergency provokes an abandon-ship order.

They bring to mind the fire that erupted in the cabin of the Apollo 1 spacecraft in January 1967, a tragedy that quickly claimed the lives of three astronauts at Launch Complex 34 near here, now a memorial site honoring the men “who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could reach the stars.”

They’re also a useful reminder: Despite the strides NASA has made in its perpetual quest to make spaceflight safer, it’s still a dangerous business. Our astronauts are essentially stepping on top of a bomb whenever they climb into the capsule of a spacecraft, a bomb they trust will go off in a controlled manner.

Of the 135 space shuttle flights, two ended in disaster, claiming seven lives each. If we accepted that failure rate in the commercial airliners we rely on in this country, we’d be tolerating more than 500 crashes every day.

Taliancich, who spent much of his career in Air Force space-launch operations, shows me where the Starliner crew capsule will fit and points out the entryway into a sealed chamber that will ensure the cabin remains pristine when the astronauts enter it.

I’d seen a Starliner an hour or so earlier in a nearby assembly plant. More accurately, I’d seen the upper and lower halves of the conical capsule without their outer heat-shielding shells, revealing the mind-boggling spaghetti mix of tubes, wires, and electrical cables that go into a spacecraft.

With improved seats and larger windows, as well as interior LED “mood lighting,” this spacecraft’s cabin is clearly a 21st-century upgrade from an Apollo capsule. While the lighting feature sounds a bit whimsical, it’s anything but. Eventually, advanced lighting may help regulate astronauts’ circadian rhythms and sleep cycles as well as their emotions, one of several critical challenges that must be overcome before NASA or any other space agency can send humans on the months-long trip to Mars.

Just when will that Mars trip finally occur?

NASA does not have a specific timeline for human exploration of the red planet. In the meantime, the focus is on sending astronauts back to the moon as a way to test both human and spacecraft capabilities.

“The moon is the proving ground; Mars is the horizon goal,” NASA’s Bridenstine said in March during a presentation at Cape Canaveral unveiling the space agency’s proposed budget.

To establish a presence on the moon, astronauts will need to look at ways of extracting water, oxygen, and helium—as fuel for human and machine alike. (Helium-3, a gas thought to exist in significant quantities there, could be used for future nuclear fusion–propelled rockets.) The moon could also wind up as a staging ground for launches to elsewhere: Since it has only one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, much less energy is needed to send a ship beyond the moon’s pull than here on our planet.

Space-exploration advocates are unhappy with the budget, saying it provides for a too-slow timetable for getting to Mars. Bridenstine counters that it incentivizes private industry to speed up capabilities for a crewed landing, and he frequently invokes the frenemy of comic character Charlie Brown to make his case that the path to Mars is genuine: “This is not Lucy and the football anymore,” he says. The Starliner—or the SpaceX version, called Crew Dragon, or both—may well be the future of human space exploration.

Still, let’s return to Earth and reiterate a few things about where we are today.

We’re manifestly not where many thought we’d be 50 years on, and certainly not where NASA’s Paine said we could be, which was not only Mars but also the moons of Jupiter and who knows where else. We’re not even back on the moon. Paine, who died in 1992, believed that thousands of us would be enjoying lunar vacations in his lifetime.

“There’s no question we can reduce the cost of travel to the moon to the cost of traveling through air today,” Paine told Time magazine shortly before the Apollo 11 landing.

It’s certainly possible that the big predictions of 1969 will come true—but closer to the 100th anniversary of the lunar landing, with this half-centennial milestone marking the beginning of Space Age 2.0.

Musk, who says he intends to move to Mars someday, is the most aggressive on a time frame. He’s pegged 2024 for a crewed SpaceX spaceship to land on Martian soil, a projection widely dismissed as hopelessly—or recklessly—optimistic. In April a U.S. government–mandated independent analysis concluded that it was “infeasible under all budget scenarios and technology development and testing schedules” for NASA to send humans to Mars before 2034. Other Mars advocates say the early 2040s is more like it.

Landing and exploring: doable. But, to be clear, many experts consider bold projections of celestial living to be, pardon the pun, lunacy.

I ran into Bill Nye, the popular and pithy Science Guy of television fame and CEO of the Planetary Society, at a space conference last year in Washington, D.C., and he rolled his eyes at the idea that Mars will eventually be “terraformed” for human habitation.

“It’s incredibly cold, there’s hardly any water, there’s no food, and by the way, there’s nothing to breathe,” Nye said. “And the smell in your space suit—bring all the Febreze you can pack, because you’re going to be craving it on Mars.” (Nye does favor missions to the red planet, just not permanent habitation.)

The other thing to reiterate: Anything we can do, our robots can do better (in space, that is), with the exception of capturing the majesty of what’s there as only an artist or poet could. We’ve done amazing things in space without sending people there, and not just because we’ve launched all those satellites into orbit that have propelled quantum leaps in how we communicate, navigate, prognosticate—on the weather, anyway—and do countless other things here on Earth.

Probes keep sending back detailed images, and soon we will be launching a telescope into space so powerful that it will enable us to peer at faraway objects whose light originated billions of years ago. This may help us answer questions about the early universe and perhaps even locate life elsewhere in the cosmos.

Those remarkable twin Voyager probes, launched in 1977 and fueled by tiny nuclear-​powered generators, are still returning data about the environment around them, sent by a radio transmitter that uses about as much power as a standard light bulb. That makes for a faint signal, but here on Earth we can “hear” what the Voyagers have to say because we’ve developed antennas sensitive enough to pick up the signal.

“Amazing” strikes me as far too limited a word to describe our most far-flung emissaries, which indeed are diplomats in that they each carry the legendary “Golden Record” of earthly sounds, music from around the world, and greetings from Jimmy Carter (the U.S. president at launch time) to inform and entertain any sentient aliens that might encounter them.

That the Voyagers are still hurtling through the heavens illustrates a serious point.

Humans simply couldn’t make this trip. With our nettlesome need for air and food and water, protection from cosmic radiation or solar flares, not to mention stimulation so we don’t go mad on the long journey to wherever, it’s worth asking: Why go at all? Why go, especially when there is basically nothing to be done that a robotic probe cannot do more efficiently, quickly, cheaply, and safely than a human being? Let’s face the truth: From mining asteroids for rare materials to snapping photos of other planets, uncrewed probes are better suited to the job.

We’re entering a second space age, in which innovations such as reusable rockets are driving down the cost of getting to Mars. The wild card: How much longer will it take to get there?

Yet this raises the question of whether it’s important for us to explore. No un-crewed journey—even one of billions of miles—will ever generate quite the thrill, suspense, or awe of a man putting the first footprint on our nearby moon—or a woman doing so someday on Mars. (The next American to step on the moon, Bridenstine says, will likely be a woman.) If members of the human species are driven to scale Mount Everest or slog to the poles, isn’t there an inevitable urge onward to Mars and beyond? It’s … you know … what we do.

“There’s a fundamental truth to our nature: Man must explore,” Apollo 15 commander David R. Scott radioed in 1971 to ground control in Houston from his spot near Hadley Rille, a valley on the moon. “And this is exploration at its greatest.”

There’s also the matter of what some futurists call an “insurance policy” for the survival of the species and others call our Plan B in case Earth itself were to become uninhabitable. That could happen through a force beyond our control, like the asteroid that seems to have annihilated the dinosaurs, or by our own folly, through nuclear war or drastic derangement of our climate.

We’ve been worried about Plan A, and that’s a good thing, because it’s by far the best plan we have, and it may be the only one. As the environmental activist and author Bill McKibben puts it, the least hospitable patch of Earth is still far more hospitable to human life than any reachable spot we have found anywhere else.

The central irony of the first space age was that the most iconic images it yielded were not those of the moon or the other planets, but the ones of our own planet. “Earthrise,” our serene-looking blue orb swaddled in swirling clouds over the moon’s horizon, is the most famous. These photographs galvanized the environmental movement, spurred new laws to clean our water and air, and prompted a lot of people to ask a simple question: “Shouldn’t we be spending all that money to fix our own problems first?”

The “all that money” part referred to the space program, which in some years consumed 4.5 percent of the federal budget. (Today NASA’s budget is half of one percent.) Getting men and women to Mars before now could easily have cost at least that much, so there’s a pretty good case to be made that we’ve been right to take a pass so far.

We’re now entering that second space age, in which relentless innovations such as reusable rockets are driving down the cost of getting there. It will surely prove much less expensive to get to Mars in another decade or three than it would be today, and certainly less than it would have been in the 1980s. That’s a good bargain, even if those of us who watched Neil Armstrong kick up a little moondust never dreamed that it would take that long.

How much longer remains the wild card.

A serious accident or tragedy in any space venture tends to set back all of them, sometimes by years. Funding is hardly bottomless: For the moment, for instance, plans for asteroid mining seem to have stalled a bit. It may or may not be true that (as the industry’s cheerleaders contend) there’s a trillion dollars or more to be harvested from rare minerals out in space, but what if it takes $100 billion or $200 billion to develop the technology to try to find out? That’s a lot of money to wager that your unicorn will come in.

Finally, space has a dark side, and not just the vast empty blackness that astronauts who have been through it describe. With the United States, China, and Russia all developing space weaponry (for defensive purposes, all three insist), we could find ourselves fighting a future war in space, launching missiles, destroying satellites, and training powerful laser weapons on earthbound targets, including people.

a man in a lab suit caressing a robot vehicle

To excavate, haul, and dump the layer of dust and rocks found on the surface of the moon, NASA designed a mobile robotic platform called RASSOR, shown here at the Kennedy Space Center. To operate in a low-gravity environment, it has counter-rotating bucket drums that are not dependent on traction or weight.

On my way to the Soyuz rocket launch in Kazakhstan, I stopped first in Moscow to meet with a few cosmonauts and visit some museums, because it’s hard to appreciate how NASA’s astronauts got to the moon without understanding the challenge posed by the Soviet space program that spurred them there.

Americans tend to view the push to the lunar landing as they would, say, a football game. Nobody really remembers or cares who was ahead during most of the contest; the important thing is who won, even if they had to come from three touchdowns behind to do it. By that score, the U.S. triumphed. End of story.

But in Russia, where Soviet-era cosmonauts are national icons, you come away with a Bizarro World view of a completely different space race.

In the Russian telling, the whole thing was more of a track meet, and they killed on points, even if the Americans bagged a prestige event at the end.

The list of Soviet firsts in space is indeed impressive, from the first satellite, dogs, man, and woman in space to the first multiperson crew and space walk. It’s enough to make any American appreciate the magnitude of our national humiliation in space at the hands of our Communist adversaries at the height of the Cold War and why President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land astronauts on the moon and return them to Earth by the end of the 1960s was such a brilliant gambit to recoup prestige on the global stage.

Interestingly, the cosmonauts I met in Russia seemed to share two perspectives with their American counterparts. First, their time in space made them profoundly more interested in protecting the Earth. (Indeed, two cosmonauts gave me books they had written—not on space, but on protecting our environment.) Second, even while strongly favoring human space exploration, they think the idea of permanent, widespread human colonization of space is bonkers.

“It’s not … pleasant, actually,” Viktor Savinykh said after a long pause when I asked him about living in space.

Savinykh, 79, is famous in Russia for his role in the daring repair of a crippled, ice-encrusted, and dangerously out-of-orbit Salyut space station in 1985. “You get disoriented so easily, you can’t remember things up there,” he continued. “It’s really hard on the brain. All that sun in your eyes. It’s hard to describe. Your body weakens.”

Still, he acknowledged that Bezos’s vision could come to pass someday.

“I don’t have the answers to this,” Savinykh told me. “The new generation and then the next and then the next—they will get to decide. We did our part.”

Those generations are certainly going to ask intriguing questions. Toward the end of the space conference I’d attended in Washington, a panel of U.S. astronauts fielded videotaped queries sent in by schoolkids from around the world.

“Is it possible,” a five-year-old boy from Baltimore named Braith Ortenzi wanted to know, “to get from galaxy to galaxy?”

“I’m glad he’s thinking big!” replied Chris Ferguson, a veteran of three space shuttle missions who’s slated to be on the first Boeing Starliner trip to the space station. “We’re going to have to master this whole light-speed thing,” he added as the audience broke into laughter, “before we get galaxy to galaxy.”

“He’ll develop the technology to do it!” interjected Victor Glover, an astronaut slated for the first SpaceX Crew Dragon flight.

“Please take us,” said Nicole Stott, a retired astronaut and veteran of two trips to the space station. “Take us with you!”

Glover, nodding with a huge grin, had the final word: “It’s on you, brother!”

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astronaut on moon collecting samples

The Incredible Case of NASA’S Missing Moondust

Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped onto the moon. Then some of the dust he carried back vanished.

The United States had been preparing for a moon landing for the better part of a decade, ever since President John F. Kennedy had declared space exploration a national priority. But no one on Earth quite understood the moon’s geology. Telescopes offered limited insights. Earlier U.S. probes had mapped the moon’s surface but never touched down. Until that day, no human had gotten within nine miles of our only satellite. The only way to answer science’s most pressing questions was to set foot on the moon, no matter the risk.

To ensure the success of the mission, NASA worked up a quicksand contingency plan. When Armstrong exited the lunar module, his first task would be to scoop up whatever material was at hand and store it in a cloth bag, labeled Lunar Sample Return, attached to his spacesuit. While the space agency hoped Armstrong would later be able to make a more thorough investigation of the lunar surface, this blind grab for material would ensure that even if the astronauts needed to make an immediate escape, they’d return to Earth with something worth analyzing.

Fortunately for Armstrong, the Sea of Tranquility lived up to its name. He took his historic steps without incident. Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin scoured the moon’s surface , collecting better lunar samples and sharing their observations with Mission Control in Houston. They found plenty of powder—the consequence of solar winds and a constant barrage of micrometeorites that beat down on the milky-white regolith. The dust followed the astronauts back into the lunar module. It smelled and tasted like gunpowder. But it was clear the moon had a solid crust, more than capable of supporting a spacecraft and its crew.

The footprints Armstrong left behind changed the way humans view their place in the universe. But from the beginning, NASA and other space explorers struggled to secure the physical artifacts of space travel, from the nuts and bolts of space vehicles to moon rocks themselves. While Armstrong’s lunar sample return bag should have been intended for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, it ended up in court. At stake was a fundamental question: Can you put a price on moondust?

The lengthy legal battle to resolve this question would involve a former NASA investigator who sided against the space agency in court, a museum curator convicted on federal charges, the U.S. Marshals Service, and a very lucky auction winner. Each had their own view on the value of space-age artifacts. But only one would win—to the tune of $2.3 million.

On July 24, the Apollo 11 team reentered Earth’s atmosphere. They’d left the lunar module on the moon. They jettisoned the service module—a long cylindrical spacecraft that had propelled the crew to the moon and provided them with electricity throughout their journey—midflight, just as planned. Finally, after days of discovery, the men splashed down into the Pacific Ocean in the command module Columbia , a cramped conical machine that encased the astronauts and their technical equipment.

With the first mission to the moon now complete, NASA set about recovering its assets. The Apollo program, which ran from 1961 to 1972, was to date one of the most expensive science experiments humankind had ever undertaken. But no one was really concerned about the monetary value of the individual items involved in the moon landing, says Louis Parker, a former NASA archivist. Lunar samples were carefully guarded, and some astronauts had sentimental attachment to “flown” objects, such as family photos or flags. But high-profile space auctions and internet trading sites like eBay were decades away. Apollo was historic, but it was not yet history.

The Columbia hit the water upside down. Three flotation bags soon inflated in the nose of the craft, righting it. Elite divers from the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team encircled the capsule with a flotation collar and removed the astronauts from the metal container. A helicopter plucked the men one by one from the water before placing them in a 21-day quarantine to ensure that they didn’t bring back any contaminants from the moon. Then began the arduous task of removing the spacecraft itself from the waves. As Mission Control in Houston puffed on celebratory cigars, the divers towed the 12,250-pound Columbia to the USS Hornet , an 872-foot-long aircraft carrier floating nearby. The command module glittered like gold under the overcast skies. A crane aboard the Hornet pulled the 12-foot-diameter craft onto the runway. There, John Hirasaki was waiting to retrieve the priceless materials inside.

the apollo 11 command module in museum

Hirasaki, a mechanical engineer born into a Japanese American rice farming family, opened the hatch. He quickly retrieved Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s undeveloped film, spacesuits, and lunar samples—including the lunar sample return bag—and placed everything into metal containers for shipping. A cargo plane was on standby for the nonstop flight to Houston. The next afternoon, the shipment arrived at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and within 48 hours, NASA proudly reported that the lunar samples were being studied at the facility’s Lunar Receiving Lab.

More than a half century of research has now chipped away at the mysteries of the moon. But in the first days and weeks after Apollo 11, the lab observed that the moondust’s most notable quality was its stickiness. Solar winds not only make the dust extremely fine, like flour, but also render it electrostatic. From the moment the astronauts landed, the grains adhered to every spacesuit, every rover, every sample collection bag—and returned with them to Earth, like a semi-toxic glitter. It was almost impossible to dislodge. It would clog equipment, including the vacuum cleaner designed to remove it. Brushes did nothing to detach it. Neither did hands, which got sandpapered by the silicate in the process. Lunar samples, it was quickly becoming clear, were both priceless and a total nuisance.

NASA was formally committed to keeping its moon rocks and moondust secure in perpetuity. Back in 1967, the United Nations brokered the international Outer Space Treaty, which stated that the exploration of the moon, and any artifacts that flowed from it, “shall be the province of all mankind.” Furthermore, NASA decided that all Apollo lunar samples were national treasure and therefore the exclusive property of the U.S. government. Private ownership, in this view, is impossible. Yet the space agency struggled to secure its haul.

From the day Hirasaki’s shipment touched down in Houston, NASA studied the lunar material in-house. But the agency also loaned rocks out to research institutions and museums around the world, exposing them to theft, damage, and loss, says Joseph Gutheinz, a former NASA investigator. Politics only complicated things further. In 1970, President Nixon gifted every U.S. state and territory, and 135 countries, moon rocks from the Apollo 11 mission. It was an act of goodwill, Gutheinz says, and a logistical nightmare. Gutheinz estimates that roughly 150 moon rocks are currently unaccounted for, many of them bestowed by Nixon. Rocks gifted to New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and Spain are just a few of the samples on Gutheinz’s most wanted list.

At times, NASA went to great lengths to recover its rocks. In 1998, Gutheinz led a sting operation to recover Honduras’s sample, which had landed in the hands of a former military colonel amid a coup d’état. (“My undercover name was Tony Coriasso,” Gutheinz says.) Gutheinz and his collaborators have also tracked missing goodwill moon rocks to U.S. governors’ and senators’ homes, university basements, and museum storage units. But they know that some rocks may never be found.

The government had even more trouble accounting for the other byproducts of the space race. Panels, screws, bags, gloves—no one knew exactly what was flowing into and out of Johnson Space Center. “It had grown into a pretty large monster,” Parker says. A 1967 agreement between NASA and the Smithsonian granted the National Air and Space Museum the right of first refusal over any of the objects decommissioned by the space agency. But reality got in the way.

For one, NASA took its time decommissioning its machinery. Once the Navy divers hauled the Columbia out of the Pacific, it was returned to its manufacturer, North American Rockwell, of Downey, California, where engineers studied the single-use module to see how it had performed. Rather than reuse or recycle the materials, as shuttle engineers do today, they took insights gleaned from postflight testing to guide the design and fabrication of entirely new machines for the next trip to space. Only after this testing was complete could the Smithsonian move the command module to Washington, D.C.—which they did in 1971, two years after it had dropped from the heavens.

a large group of people standing outside

NASA’s agreement with the Smithsonian was also undercut by handshake deals. Some engineers worked with NASA to get Apollo-era mementos formally released, with all the necessary paperwork to prove their lawful ownership. “They were pretty conscientious about that,” Parker says. “There were others that said, ‘This isn’t going to be tracked again,’” and took their favorite odds and ends home without clearance. The consequences could be serious: In 2011, when Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell tried to sell at auction a camera he’d brought back from the moon, NASA sued its 80-year-old former employee. Mitchell claimed that management had told him he could keep the camera, but NASA said it had no formal record granting Mitchell ownership. (Mitchell eventually settled the lawsuit by agreeing to donate the camera to the National Air and Space Museum.)

The biggest impediment to archiving the Apollo missions was that NASA and the Smithsonian simply didn’t have the resources to match their ambition. The Apollo program involved 25,000 companies and 400,000 employees. It generated hundreds of thousands of artifacts, some as big as a rocket but many that were even smaller than a lunar sample return bag. “The Smithsonian, they were licking their chops,” Parker says. But the curators were 1,400 miles away, in Washington, D.C. And down in Houston, things had a way of getting lost.

Johnson Space Center sits at the intersection of two lakes: Clear and Mud. From the sky, the sprawling 1,620-acre complex looks like a home plate, with more than 100 buildings clustered inside. It’s home to NASA’s Mission Control Center , specialized laboratories for everything from lunar sample analysis to space food development, and training centers that simulate the hardships of space. But in the story of Armstrong’s backup moondust, it’s perhaps Buildings 421 and 422 that matter most.

The sprawling warehouses, bigger than a football field, still sit at the northern edge of the complex, along Space Center Boulevard. In the 1970s, the buildings, along with an adjoining storage yard, were dedicated to the “excess property” generated by the Apollo program. As the program was ending, manufacturers from around the country were returning every single nut and bolt to headquarters. There, NASA employees and volunteers sorted through semitruck shipments, airdrops, and even the wastebaskets of other Johnson Space Center employees.

Among the eager recruits was a 25-year-old named Max Ary. While NASA didn’t always see the value in its “excess property,” Ary did.

As the enthusiastic new director of a Fort Worth planetarium, Ary began writing to NASA after each lunar mission, asking for photos and technical manuals. “I was a child of the Space Age,” Ary says. “I’ll never forget, I was seven years old, waking up one morning in 1957 to my Roy Rogers alarm clock and hearing about this thing called Sputnik .” For years, Ary read every word about spaceflight, studied every diagram. Eventually he started reaching out to the manufacturers themselves on behalf of the planetarium. Whirlpool was one company to send him spare parts from their Apollo program­—in that case, a water gun designed to rehydrate food in space. “When I’d go to return them, they’d say, ‘No, keep ’em, we don’t need them,’” Ary says. And so his planetarium’s collection began to grow.

Soon Ary had amassed a body of knowledge that impressed even the Smithsonian. In 1975, he was invited to join an ad hoc group of Apollo enthusiasts who would take turns looking for treasure on behalf of the National Air and Space Museum. Ary and his fellow volunteers logged the parts piling up in Buildings 421 and 422, where crates were stacked to the ceilings. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, when it was all said and done, there were half a million items,” Ary says. Using old-fashioned film cameras, they photographed every object of historical significance for curators in Washington, D.C., to review. If the Smithsonian liked an object, Ary and his colleagues stored it or shipped it for them. “I made many trips down to Houston,” Ary says. “Each trip got longer and longer.”

Some days it was dull administrative work. Each object had a part number and serial number. No one wanted to spend the money on a mainframe computer for excess inventory, Ary recalls, so Chuck Biggs, the director of public services at NASA, developed his own handwritten inventory system. Sorters wrote down each digit of each code on a legal pad, before transferring it to a typewritten form in triplicate. “It was almost an optical illusion,” Ary says. Logging items on little sleep, Ary and his colleagues knew they were making mistakes in the process. But in those days, there was no other option. “You write it down and hope for the best,” Ary says.

Other days were action-packed. “Back then, the excess-property system had a lot more holes in it,” Parker says. If Parker, Ary, or another scavenger didn’t claim a box for the Smithsonian, Parker says the delivery guys “just took it out to dumpsters and got rid of it.” NASA had an objective: Make way for the new space shuttle program. Ary remembers a shipment arriving with a nondescript label like “chairs.” But when he took a look inside the truck, he recalls, “well, here were the ejection seats” from a recent space shuttle simulator. Ary begged the driver to wait for the paperwork they needed to save the seats. The driver was impatient to move on. “I literally jumped up on the front of the truck—on the hood of the truck—and said, ‘Stop!’”

Ary saved the simulator seats from being junked. But countless other objects were melted down for metal or incinerated. “Thousands and thousands of these artifacts were just destroyed out of desperation,” Ary says. “I don’t even want to think about what we missed.”

Lunar samples were the one thing the excess-property team should never have encountered. The rocks and the dust had been designated national treasures before they’d even been collected. Any item that may have come into contact with moon rocks or moondust was sent to the Lunar Receiving Lab for processing. “Supposedly they kept track of all 842 pounds that came back,” Ary says, “and they would keep track of it to a fraction of a gram.” But things occasionally slipped through the cracks. In 2011, for example, the government recovered a single piece of tape that NASA photographer Terry Slezak had used to remove lunar dust from his fingers decades earlier. If Ary or his colleagues ever stumbled upon what looked like extraterrestrial soil, they knew what to do: Send it back to the Lunar Receiving Lab immediately.

Parker, who retired from NASA in 2011, says he’s forgetting some of the details of those days. But, he says, “Max was the ultimate scavenger.” Ary helped save many priceless artifacts for the Smithsonian. Today the Air and Space Museum has more than 3,500 artifacts from the Apollo moon landing alone, including the Apollo 11 command module Columbia ; Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit, visor, and gloves; and the mobile quarantine facility the astronauts lived in aboard the USS Hornet . “You could spend your whole career going through the artifacts,” Parker says.

That still left thousands of objects without a home. NASA’s contractors never made one of any given item. They often made dozens. There were prototypes and test versions, and, of course, the final products flown to the moon. Unopened packs of astronaut food and duplicates of bags made of beta cloth (a fireproof material developed by NASA for space travel) still had value, Ary says, but they weren’t heading to the nation’s capital. So Ary improvised a mutually beneficial solution: He would ship these lesser artifacts to his own museum. “We can throw them away just as easily as you can,” he told NASA and the Smithsonian.

a man in a suit and tie

By 1976, Ary had uprooted his collection from the Fort Worth planetarium and moved to Hutchinson, Kansas. There he was busy transforming a local museum into the Cosmosphere, today a world-class air and space museum. Over time, Ary’s museum board acquired thousands of square feet of storage to house excess Space Age artifacts out on the prairie. “I’d estimate we probably saved well over 100,000 artifacts that would have never survived,” Ary says.

From then on, objects of national significance were always passing through Hutchinson. Ary had gained a reputation for his reassembly and restoration skills. When NASA shipped a command module simulator by boat, the machine took on seawater, causing rust. Ary agreed to refurbish it for free, provided he could display it at the Cosmosphere. “I can remember walking into his shop facility,” Parker says, “and he had this thing literally laid out all over the floor. I was impressed he’d taken it all apart like that.” The real shock came a few months later: “It was all put back together,” Parker says. “It looked like it just rolled off the assembly line.”

But it seemed like the Cosmosphere’s storage unit had been forgotten by everyone but Ary. “Some of the stuff I had, I had for 30 years,” Ary says. “NASA never asked about it. The Smithsonian never asked about it.” Over time, the lack of interest from the government led him to a regrettable conclusion: “You just make the assumption, well, it’s kind of mine, I guess,” Ary says.

The sky collapsed on Ary one night in 2003. He got a call from a friend, the astronaut Gene Cernan, who was the eleventh man to walk on the moon. Cernan had some alarming news: The FBI had just interviewed him. The topic of conversation? Max Ary.

At the turn of the millennium, the sale of space memorabilia was heating up. What NASA had considered junk just a few decades before was now selling for thousands of dollars at auction houses and on newly launched sites like eBay. A 1999 space sale at Christie’s “reset the industry,” says Robert Pearlman, founder and editor of CollectSPACE, an online clearinghouse for all things aerospace history. Lots included an equipment locker pried from the Apollo 13 command module, Gemini-era gloves, and a piece of a beta-cloth bag used on the moon. What started off as a normal auction, Pearlman recalls, quickly turned into “somewhat of a stunner.” One of Armstrong’s spacesuits, valued at $60,000 to $80,000, went for $178,500. “Suddenly we realize, everything has changed,” Pearlman says.

NASA itself was also undergoing a major change. The Apollo program had brought thousands of recent college graduates together to put a man on the moon. That meant by the 1990s, thousands of NASA contractors were reaching retirement age around the same time. “Back then, you had people who came in, did their jobs, they didn’t worry about all the aftereffects,” Parker says of the Apollo program. But when a new generation of NASA scientists, bureaucrats, and lawyers took charge, they had a new attitude: Get a handle on the moon rocks, astronaut memorabilia, and other space-age artifacts. And fast.

Gutheinz, the NASA investigator, had spent much of the 1990s hunting down fraudsters selling fake moondust. When he realized just how many real moon rocks were missing, he started setting up sting operations to recover the material. While most of the more mundane sales—of manuals and space shuttle models—were aboveboard, prosecutors were watchful for ill-gotten space goods.

The year before Cernan’s call, in 2002, Ary had left Hutchinson behind. “I had a bucket list,” he says. “I achieved all the items on that bucket list.” The Cosmosphere’s for-profit subsidiary, Space Works, consulted on the 1995 blockbuster film Apollo 13 . The museum helped the Discovery Channel pull the Liberty Bell 7 , a sunken Project Mercury–era spacecraft, from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean and restore it for public display. Ary’s closest collaborator, Patty Carey, was in her ninth decade. It was time, Ary felt, to move on. Now the Cosmosphere and the U.S. government were claiming that Ary had stolen their property.

What exactly happened depends on who you ask, says Pearlman, who documented each development in Ary’s case for CollectSPACE readers. When Ary left the Cosmosphere, the curator who replaced him conducted an audit of the museum’s roughly 12,000 pieces. The curator noticed that some items were missing—about 400 in total, when first reported. Some had been loaned for the Apollo 13 film and never returned, subsequent investigations revealed. Others turned up with time. But still others had been auctioned online.

In 1999, court documents show, Ary had created two accounts with Superior Galleries, an auction house based in Los Angeles. One was a personal account, and one was an account for the museum. This was not in itself illegal; Ary was a private collector, and museums buy, sell, and trade items from their collections all the time. But over the next two years, Ary went on to sell a number of items through his personal account that didn’t technically belong to him, according to the U.S. Attorney in Wichita, pursuing the case on behalf of NASA.

Between the items Ary sold online and the artifacts recovered by the FBI during a raid on his home, about 120 of the Cosmosphere’s missing objects were connected to Ary. Of the ones Ary auctioned, two had been loaned to the Cosmosphere by NASA: a flown list of codes used by the command module computer and an Apollo 15 tape.

In April 2005, Ary was indicted in federal court on counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, theft of government property, and interstate transportation of stolen property. In court, former coworkers, including Louis Parker from NASA, were called to testify. That November, a jury convicted Ary on 12 counts and he would later serve two years in prison.

Other collectors of space memorabilia got caught in the fray. Pearlman was among those who’d unknowingly purchased an item at auction that courts later determined Ary did not have the right to sell. The CollectSPACE founder had won a detached spacesuit pocket at auction that had been labeled as a backup produced for Apollo 16. “In the course of the court case, it was revealed it actually flew on Apollo 16, so I got an incredible deal on it,” Pearlman jokes. But after the federal government contacted Pearlman, he returned the object to the Smithsonian.

Ary, now 74, maintains his innocence. He says the intermingling of his personal collection with the Cosmosphere’s from the museum’s inception, combined with clerical errors stretching back to the 1970s, were to blame for the confusion. But in the minds of NASA’s new guard, Ary says, his explanations were worthless. No one believed that “these artifacts could have been thrown away,” Ary says. It didn’t matter, he adds, that “they didn’t know the difference between a Mercury capsule or a Tylenol capsule.” That part of Apollo history—of what transpired in Buildings 421 and 422—had already been lost.

lunar sample bag

Today Ary is back to work, this time as the director of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma. While he has a startlingly quick memory of events long past, he still struggles to talk about the emotional impact of his legal odyssey and two years behind bars. “At the time, it didn’t go by very fast,” Ary says. “I decided, ‘I have to get this out of my mind. I can’t do anything about it.’” Now he tries to see it as one chapter of an otherwise momentous 55-year career. But one man’s worst nightmare would soon prove to be another woman’s lucky break.

In March 2015, Nancy Lee Carlson, a lawyer with a passion for space exploration, scrolled through a Texas-based auction company catalog. A white beta-cloth bag piqued her interest. The details were sparse: “One flown zippered lunar sample return bag with lunar dust (“Lunar Bag”), 11.5 inches; tear at center,” the listing read. “Flown Mission Unknown.” But, Carlson told the Wall Street Journal , she felt that the bag “had a story I could figure out.” She nabbed it for $995—more than she’d ever spent at auction before. (Carlson could not be reached for further comment.)

When the bag arrived at Carlson’s home in Inverness, Illinois, the inside was coated with a sticky dust. She decided to ship the bag to NASA for further testing. Before she sent it off, Carlson had also found a part number, clearly labeled inside. After a few months of digging, and radio silence from NASA, Carlson found a corresponding code in the Apollo 11 inventory: “V36-788-034 Decontamination bag, contingency lunar SRC.” The story was coming together—and it was a good one.

In May 2016, after months of waiting, Carlson got the confirmation: Her bag indeed contained lunar dust from moon rock samples collected during Apollo 11. And they weren’t just any sample. The specific geology of the rocks, along with the part number, suggested that her bag was the one Armstrong used to collect the first-ever samples of the moon. The hidden gem had been among Max Ary’s assets seized by the U.S. Marshals Service. It was mistakenly auctioned off to pay for Ary’s court-ordered restitution to previous buyers like Pearlman.

The news came from a surprising source. Instead of NASA’s moon rock laboratory, Carlson heard from the District Attorney in Kansas. NASA had asked the court to revoke the results of the auction. The agency claimed that it was the rightful owner of the bag, along with the moondust inside. The government was willing to give Carlson $995 for her trouble. So Carlson decided to sue the U.S. government.

Ary says he never knew the value of the bag. NASA claims to have lent the bag to the Cosmosphere in 1981, but the agency was not able to find a loan agreement. Ary thinks it’s more likely he picked it up in the 1970s when he was routinely sorting objects at Johnson Space Center.

In those days, cloth bags were so commonplace that NASA shipped some of its artifacts with the bags as packing material, Ary recalls. “You had enough bags to cover the earth,” he says. “You didn’t even look at them after a while.” In hindsight, Ary believes this particular bag looked so worn that he probably planned to cut it up into scraps for students to touch, as he often did with spare beta cloth. “Probably the most interesting thing about that bag was how uninteresting it was,” he says.

a person holding a vile of moon dust

Fortunately, Ary never got around to slicing and dicing. Instead, the bag entered into the Cosmosphere’s records in the early 1980s with a description similar to the one offered by the auction house: “Lunar Sample Return Bag, Flown Mission Unknown.” Its value was estimated at $15. When Ary left for a new job, the bag somehow ended up with him.

Now that NASA knew the true value of the worn-out beta cloth, the agency was desperate to keep it. “This artifact was never meant to be owned by an individual,” NASA spokesperson William Jeffs said in a 2017 statement. It had both scientific and historical significance and had been sold to Carlson by accident. NASA wasn’t wrong: Proper procedure dictated that the U.S. Marshals work with NASA to identify anything the government wanted among Ary’s personal possessions before auctioning them off. And there was precedent for seizing other lunar samples that entered the market, like Gutheinz and his Honduran goodwill moon rock sting operation.

To everyone’s surprise, Gutheinz, now retired from NASA, ended up supporting Carlson’s case. “I’m guilty as probably anyone else at NASA, because my gut-level first reaction to this was, ‘This isn’t her property. This is a national treasure,’” Gutheinz says. But he looked deeper and determined the fault was with the U.S. Marshals, for not clearing the sale with NASA. Once they’d made their error, the sale to a private citizen was perfectly legal. “I do not believe in private ownership,” Gutheinz says, “except for Nancy Lee Carlson.”

A U.S. district court agreed. In 2016, after a yearlong court battle, a federal judge ruled that NASA must return the bag to Carlson. In 2019, Carlson sold it at auction for $1.8 million. “This is my Mona Lisa moment,” Cassandra Hatton, an expert with Sotheby’s auction house, has said. But NASA never returned the moondust test samples from inside the bag, so Carlson sued NASA once more. She won again and quickly set about selling this artifact, too.

To find a buyer, Carlson now turned to Bonhams. The international auction house has dealt in art, antiquities, and rare books, as well as artifacts from the history of science and technology, since the 18th century. Adam Stackhouse, a specialist at Bonhams, knew that Carlson had something special on her hands. “You hold it and it just really transports you to that moment,” he says. It was like holding the moon landing in your hands. But the story was mostly in the holder’s head.

To collect the dust for testing, NASA scientists had scoured the interior of the lunar sample bag with carbon tape, going so far as to rip the bag open at the seams for better access to the invisible grains. Then they affixed the black strips to aluminum discs and analyzed them under a scanning electron microscope. When the electrons hit the atoms in the moondust, it created a black-and-white image of the lunar sample’s topography. Cool—but invisible to the naked eye.

What really enticed prospective buyers to line up or log on to the hybrid auction in April 2022 was that Carlson’s sample had a one-of-a-kind provenance. In previous cases where moon samples had fallen into private hands, NASA had successfully reclaimed the rocks or dust. Carlson’s sample was different. “It was NASA verified,” Stackhouse says. “It was legal to sell.” It was, for now, most buyers’ only hope of owning a piece of the moon. In the end, the specks sold for just over $500,000.

Space-age sales skyrocketed in the 1990s, and they’ve never fallen back to Earth. As with art or antiques, collectors see the value in NASA-originated artifacts. But the way they show their care can vary widely: Some collectors protect objects overlooked by museums, while others find ways to share their belongings with the world. Still others keep things for themselves.

To date, the collector (or collectors) who purchased Armstrong’s bag and the moondust inside has chosen to remain anonymous. They have not elected to loan their objects out to a museum, either. Space enthusiasts like Pearlman can only speculate about the fate of the artifacts. Perhaps the objects are displayed in a wealthy person’s home, he says. Or secured in a vault like any other asset, and not enjoyed by anyone. They are all perfectly valid choices, Pearlman says, but the anonymity eats at him. “I would just like to have some public accountability so it’s not lost to history—again,” he says.

As new countries set their sights on the moon, including Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, and the United Arab Emirates, questions of ownership become even more complicated. How will other space agencies choose to handle their moon rocks? What will the United States, which plans to land a woman and a person of color on the moon in the Artemis program, do differently this time? And what lengths will people continue to go to in order to get their hands on a piece of the moon?

Eleanor Cummins is a freelance science journalist in Brooklyn whose work can be found in The Atlantic, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Verge, WIRED, and more. She is also an adjunct professor at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program.

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Thomas Stafford, 93, Commander of First U.S.-Soviet Space Mission, Dies

The Apollo-Soyuz mission, amid the Cold War, broke new ground in space cooperation when an American capsule docked with a Soviet craft 140 miles above the earth.

A portrait of Thomas P. Stafford, a balding man with a serious expression wearing an astronaut's uniform with the NASA logo visible on the left side of his chest.

By Richard Goldstein

Thomas P. Stafford, an astronaut who pioneered cooperation in space when he commanded the American capsule that linked up with a Soviet spaceship in July 1975, died on Monday in Satellite Beach, Fla. He was 93.

His death, in a retirement home, was confirmed by his wife, Linda. She said he had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer.

General Stafford flew four times in space and orbited within nine miles of the moon’s surface on the mission that preceded the moon walks of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969, fulfilling President John F. Kennedy’s quest to best the Soviet Union in the space race.

But when General Stafford flew with the civilian astronauts Donald K. Slayton , known as Deke, and Vance D. Brand in the Apollo capsule that docked with the Soviet Union’s two-man Soyuz some 140 miles above the earth, he looked beyond the rivalries of world powers.

“I’m sure we have opened up a new era in the history of man,” he told the two Soviet astronauts, Lt. Col. Aleksei A. Leonov and Valery N. Kubasov .

The Cold War would linger until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but, as General Stafford suggested, the future of space lay in missions with international crews.

In 1959, when NASA chose the first group of seven astronauts for its Project Mercury in America’s race to put a man on the moon, General Stafford, a lanky, 6-foot Oklahoman who was then a junior Air Force officer, was on the selection list. He had been a test pilot and an instructor, he had graduated from a service academy, and he had a scientific bent. But he was an inch too tall for the Mercury capsules.

He enrolled at what became Harvard Business School in September 1962. But on his 32nd birthday, three days after his arrival in Cambridge, he was offered a spot in NASA’s Gemini program, since he could fit into the larger capsules that would soon be launched. He put Harvard behind him.

He flew twice for the Gemini program and became an expert in rendezvous, the linkup of two spacecraft that would be required for a moon voyage. He orbited the moon in a two-man lunar module in May 1969, scouting a landing site for Apollo 11.

Six years later, when General Stafford’s Apollo capsule caught up with the Soyuz launched by the Soviet Union, and the two spacecraft drew close in adjoining orbits, he radioed the Soviet astronauts and said, in Russian, “We have capture.” Colonel Leonov replied in English, “Well done, Tom, it was a good show.”

More than three hours later, General Stafford and Mr. Slayton crawled into the Soyuz through a connecting module while Mr. Brand remained in the Apollo to monitor its systems. General Stafford presented the Soviets with five small American flags. The Russians responded with gifts that included a sketch of the three Americans drawn by Colonel Leonov, an amateur artist.

The Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev , sent good wishes in a message transmitted by Soviet space officials, and President Gerald R. Ford spoke to the crews by telephone. Over the next 44 hours, the five spacemen took turns visiting with one another, conducting scientific experiments and holding a joint news conference before separating.

After nine days in space, the Apollo spacecraft, which had been launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, splashed down 330 miles northwest of Hawaii, almost precisely on target. But the astronauts’ mishandling of switches during descent allowed a noxious gas to enter their chamber, affecting the lungs of all three crewmen and resulting in their brief hospitalization upon landing. Mr. Brand said he was to blame for the mishap, but General Stafford said the crew bore a collective responsibility.

That proved a footnote to a mission that thrilled Americans and Russians alike. When General Stafford and his fellow astronauts visited the Soviet Union in September 1975 as guests of their Russian counterparts, they were greeted with cheers on the streets and they signed autographs.

Thomas Patten Stafford was born on Sept. 17, 1930, in Weatherford, Okla., west of Oklahoma City. His father, Thomas Sabert Stafford, was a dentist. His mother, Mary Ellen (Patten) Stafford, had moved to Oklahoma as a child in her family’s covered wagon.

He graduated in 1952 from the United States Naval Academy where, he once told Life magazine, “I stood near the top in all the engineering subjects, and in just about everything but conduct.”

He was commissioned in the Air Force, flew fighter planes and then attended the experimental flight test school at Edwards Air Force Base in California. After graduating in 1959, he became chief of the performance branch of the aerospace research pilot school at Edwards and wrote manuals for Air Force test pilots.

General Stafford’s first spaceflight was in December 1965 when, as an Air Force major, he piloted Gemini 6, commanded by Capt. Walter M. Schirra Jr. of the Navy. Orbiting 185 miles above the earth, Gemini 6 came within a foot of the Gemini 7 capsule, which carried Cmdr. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy and Lt. Col. Frank Borman of the Air Force and which was launched 11 days before Gemini 6 lifted off.

That joint mission marked the first rendezvous of two manned spacecraft, the kind of maneuver that had to be perfected for a lunar module to descend to the moon from a command module, which remained in orbit, and then link up with it for the trip home.

General Stafford was back in space in June 1966 as the commander of Gemini 9, flying with Capt. Eugene A. Cernan of the Navy. Initially assigned as a backup crew, they stepped in when Elliot See and Charles Bassett, the astronauts assigned to the mission, were killed in a training jet crash. Gemini 9 carried out three variations of rendezvous with a previously launched unmanned target vehicle.

On the Apollo 10 mission in May 1969, General Stafford flew in orbit around the moon with Commander Cernan in their lunar module, nicknamed Snoopy, from the “Peanuts” cartoon strip, while Capt. John W. Young of the Navy remained in orbit in their space capsule, christened Charlie Brown, awaiting their return. That flight scouted a potential landing site in the Sea of Tranquillity for Apollo 11 and was the first to beam live color TV images from space.

General Stafford, who received his first star in 1972, held major administrative positions in NASA after the Apollo 10 flight, then returned for his fourth space mission in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and was promoted to major general.

He left NASA to command the Air Force flight test center at Edwards in 1975, and in 1978 was promoted to lieutenant general and named deputy chief of staff for research and development of the Air Force. He retired in November 1979 and became an aviation consultant.

Stafford Air & Space Museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian, opened in his hometown, Weatherford, two years later.

General Stafford and his wife, Linda Ann (Dishman) Stafford, adopted two boys, Michael and Stas, from a Russian orphanage in 2004 with help from Colonel Leonov, who was a character witness for the couple.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Stafford is survived by Michael and Stas; his daughters, Dionne and Karin Stafford, both from his first marriage, to Faye Shoemaker, which ended in divorce; a stepdaughter, Kassie Pierce; a stepson, Mark Hill; two grandsons; four step-grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

While the Staffords’ boys, were adjusting to life in the United States during their first months in Oklahoma, when they were 13 and 9, General Stafford reflected on his continuing friendship with Colonel Leonov and on how the world had changed since their pioneering adventure.

“We’ve kept in close touch over the years,” he told The Oklahoman newspaper in 2004. “We talk quite a bit. He was a big Communist in the old days; now he is an investment banker.”

When Colonel Leonov died at 85 in 2019, General Stafford spoke in Russian at the funeral, held in a suburb of Moscow. He called Colonel Leonov “my colleague and friend” and said: “Alexei, we will never forget you.”

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the timing of the launch of the NASA space mission Gemini 7 in December 1965. It occurred 11 days before another mission, Gemini 6, lifted off, not “a few hours” before that launch.

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the names, drawn from the “Peanuts” cartoon strip, that were given to the lunar module and the space capsule on NASA’s Apollo 10 mission in 1969. The capsule was called Charlie Brown, not Snoopy, and the lunar module was called Snoopy, not Charlie Brown.

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Apollo 11: returning from the moon.

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On July 21, 1969, command and service module pilot Michael Collins photographed this close-up view of the docking target on the Apollo 11 Lunar Module from the Command Module. The image was captured during docking in lunar orbit as Mission Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin returned from the lunar surface. Collins had remained in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin explored the lunar surface.

Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the Moon’s surface. During the mission’s spacewalk, Aldrin deployed the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, or EASEP, experiments, and Armstrong and Aldrin gathered and verbally reported on the lunar surface samples. The entire spacewalk lasted more than two-and-a-half hours, ending at 111 hours, 39 minutes into the mission.

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apollo 11 trip back to earth

Starfield: All Earth Landmarks

Quick links, the shard (london), the pyramids of giza (egypt), empire state building (new york), the gateway arch (saint louis), the shanghai tower (china), international commerce center (hong kong), us bank tower (los angeles), burj khalifa (dubai), abeno harukas (osaka), nasa launch tower (cape canaveral), opportunity rover (mars), apollo 11 (moon).

Of the many hundreds of planets and star systems you can visit in Starfield , one might be of particular interest to most players, especially to the more curious ones. Although you might head out there eventually as you play through the main quest, visiting Earth back in the Sol system is usually one of the first things you might do once you figure out the game .

Related: Starfield: All Major Cities And Their Locations

However, Earth is a barren desert with barely anything of interest since its magnetosphere was destroyed years ago, causing humans to flee and settle across the systems. But there are some notable areas on Earth, particularly specific landmarks that you might get to see during your visit. It isn’t too easy to find the landmarks though, since Earth is huge just like every other planet, and it’s tedious to randomly land everywhere.

Updated on 9/17/2023 by Umair Malek: As players continue to explore Starfield, more and more of the setting is being discovered. We've added several new entries to stay current with those discoveries.

To get to the shard you’ll have to read a book, Oliver Twist, which can be purchased at certain vendors, in particular, Sinclair’s books which you’ll find at Akilla City. Akilla City is a major town in the Freestar Collective space and is its unofficial capital.

After reading the book, you will then unlock the landing site for the Shard on Earth. You’ll find the remains of the once great Shard covered in dust standing alone on the desert that is the 24th century Earth. If you look around, you might also find the London snow globe on a rock.

The Pyramids of Giza are among the prettier monuments you can visit, both in Starfield and in real life. It fits in quite well with the desert, making it a must-visit if you plan to explore Earth. You'll have to find the book The Ancient Civilization of Egypt first though, and similarly, you can buy it from Sinclair’s books at Akilla city.

Upon reading the book, the landing site will then be unlocked for you to visit with your ship and marvel at what’s left of one of the wonders of the world. Just like the snow globe for London, you’ll find a similar one for Cairo on a rock near one of the two pyramids.

The New York landmark is a different case compared to the two previous locations. To get the landing site on your map, you must find a book called: Our Lost Heritage. The simplest way to get your hands on the book is to head on over to the Mast District and to President Abello’s office.

Once you've read the book, the New York landing site will be added to your map, and surprisingly, the tower still stands, even though everything around it is in ruins. You can’t go inside or explore the Empire State Building, but you can find the New York snow globe on one of the rocks, a recurring theme of visiting Earth landmarks in Starfield.

Related: Starfield: Adoring Fan, Explained

Similar to the Empire State Building, the only way to get to the landing site for the Gateway Arch on your map is to find a book called The Price of Destiny. Head over to Neon and pickpocket Benjamin Bayu’s Key to his penthouse for the book. He’s usually hanging around in one of the VIP areas of the Astral Lounge.

Once the landing site is added to your map you can explore the Gateway Arch in all its glory, or what’s left of it anyway. The snow globe for Saint Louis should be beneath the Arch.

The Shanghai Tower is another notable landmark among the few places you can visit on Earth that isn’t covered in dust and debris. For the landing site, you’ll have to read a book called Essentials of Modern Macroeconomics. The simplest way to get it will be to dock an unidentified ship orbiting around Porimma II in the Porimma system and head over to the residential level. From there you’ll have to find the classroom lift and pick up the book from the table.

The Shanghai Tower has a lot of missing pieces but is truly a marvel even in Starfield, and the snow globe should be near the bottom.

The International Commerce Center in Hong Kong is one of the lesser-known places compared to the other landmarks you can find on Earth and finding it is fairly easy. You can get the landing site option for it by reading Maurice’s journal which you can find on Titan at the New Homestead settlement museum.

Just like the Shanghai Tower, the International Commerce Center looks tattered, and battle-scarred, but that’s to be expected from a planet without a magnetosphere. You’ll also find the snow globe for Hong Kong somewhere around the building.

Related: Starfield: What Happened To Earth

Seeing the city of angels reduced to a dust-laden wasteland is not the best of outcomes you would expect but with Earth's destruction . The remnants of the US Bank Tower can be visited by picking up a book called the Hope Family Tree, which can be found on Ron Hope's desk in Hopetown.

You should try and grab it during the Freestar Rangers quest line, because you'll only gain access to that book again during a Ryujin Industries quest. You can then visit the location and pick up the snow globe that should be resting somewhere around the ruins.

Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world and given its sturdy construction, there was never a doubt that it would survive the Earth apocalypse somehow. You can have the landing site for Dubai unlocked once you read a book called ‘Race to the Heavens’.

The book is in one of the VIP rooms in the Siren of the Stars ship that can be found orbiting around Aranae IV in the Olympus star system. It’s probably one of the biggest Earth Landmarks discovered yet, and visiting it is a must-do if you really want to explore Earth.

From Osaka Japan, another skyscraper that managed to survive till the 24th century is the Abeno Harukas. The landing site for this one can be unlocked by reading the Diary of Kyosuke Nagata. It’s found at the Lock prison of the planet Suvorov and falls under the Crimson Fleet’s Kryx system .

Abeno Harukas unfortunately finds itself half buried in the desert, but you can still find a snow globe for Osaka near the building.

Although not technically a Landmark or a Landing site, you’ll visit the NASA Launch Tower during your journey with Constellation in the Unearthed main story quest. In this quest, you’ll learn of the small steps humanity took before achieving interstellar travel .

The area is filled with small Easter eggs, and you can even learn about how the Earth's magnetosphere was destroyed during their first few experiments with Grav jumping. For the snow globe, you’ll have to climb to the upper levels of the launch tower. It will be sitting on a desk.

Another easily missable landmark is the Opportunity rover. You'll only get one shot at getting the landing site on your map. During the 'Unearthed' quest , as you explore the NASA Launch Tower, you'll have to interact with the MER Program Exhibit. This will add the landing site to your map, and you can visit it on Mars whenever you'd like.

There, you'll find the remains of the Opportunity rover, one of humanity's first steps in exploring the unknown. You'll also find a snow globe to add to your collection

Another Landmark that's not on Earth, but is worth visiting, is the Apollo 11 Landmark. These were humanity's first steps on a world beyond their own. You can mark the landing site by visiting the Lodge and going to Matteo's room. There you'll find a copy of Sir Livingston's Second Journal.

Reading it will automatically add the waypoint onto your map. There you'll see the Apollo Lander, and you can snag the Apollo snow globe as well.

Next: Starfield: 10 Best Cities, Ranked

Starfield: All Earth Landmarks

IMAGES

  1. Así fue el aterrizaje lunar del Apollo 11 hace 50 años: las mejores

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  2. PHOTOS: Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years later

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  3. NASA has released new photos of the Apollo 11 moon landings

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  4. PHOTOS: Relive the Apollo 11 moon landing through these historical images

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  5. 10 Reasons Why the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Was Awesome

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  6. How Did Neil Armstrong Return To Earth

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VIDEO

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  3. Debunking Apollo 11 Fake Window cutout claim

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  5. This is Why NASA Never Returned to the Moon

  6. Apollo11: Earth Re-entry

COMMENTS

  1. Apollo 11's Return to Earth Rooted in Aeronautics Research

    The Apollo 11 command module Columbia with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin aboard splashed down at 11:49 a.m. CDT, July 24, 1969, about 812 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii and only 12 nautical miles from the USS Hornet. A half-century ago, as the Apollo 11 command module Columbia ripped through Earth's ...

  2. Apollo 11

    Apollo 12 →. Apollo 11 (July 16-24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on ...

  3. Apollo 11 Flight Log, July 24, 1969: Return to Earth

    NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins returned to Earth on July 24, 1969 to mark the end of their successful lunar landing missions. See how they ...

  4. Apollo 11

    Space Samples Link NASA's Apollo 11 and Mars 2020. 4 min read. On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 command module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific, fulfilling President Kennedy's goal to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Among the mission's many firsts was the acquisition and….

  5. Apollo 11 Mission Overview

    The primary objective of Apollo 11 was to complete a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961: perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth. Additional flight objectives included scientific exploration by the lunar module, or LM, crew; deployment of a television camera to transmit signals to Earth; and deployment of ...

  6. Apollo 11

    Apollo 11 was the culmination of the Apollo program and a massive national commitment by the United States to beat the Soviet Union in putting people on the Moon. ... Eagle once again docked with Collins in Columbia, and the trip back to Earth began soon afterward. Moon: seen from Apollo 11. Full moon seen from Apollo 11 on its return journey ...

  7. Apollo 11 Moon Landing Timeline: From Liftoff to Splashdown

    195:18:35: Splashdown. The Apollo 11 mission concluded exactly eight days, three hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds after launch with a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean, about 800 nautical ...

  8. Apollo 11

    The first crewed Moon landing. Apollo 11 was the first mission to land humans on the Moon. It fulfilled a 1961 goal set by President John F. Kennedy to send American astronauts to the surface and return them safely to Earth before the end of the decade. On 21 July 1969 at 02:56:15 UTC, Neil Armstrong pressed his left foot onto the Moon and said ...

  9. Apollo 11 at 50: A Complete Guide to the Historic Moon Landing

    Apollo 11 carried the first geological samples from the moon back to Earth. In total, Armstrong and Aldrin collected 48.5 lbs. (22 kilograms) of material from the moon, including 50 moon rocks ...

  10. Apollo 11 Timeline

    At 21:35 UTC (5:35 pm ET) lunar module would rendezvous with the command and service modules, where Michael Collins would welcome back Aldrin and Armstrong. At 23:41 UTC (9:41 pm ET) Lunar Module Eagle was jettisoned into lunar orbit. What we left behind July 22, 1969 4:55 UTC 11:55 pm ET. Apollo 11 left lunar orbit to return to Earth. July 24 ...

  11. Historic Apollo 11 Footage: Returning to Earth after Moon Landing

    "As a result of what you have done, the world's never been closer together .... We can reach for the stars just as you have reached so far for the stars," sa...

  12. Apollo 11

    After 21 hours 38 minutes on the Moon's surface, the astronauts used Eagle's ascent stage to launch it back into lunar orbit. After various maneuvers, Eagle once again docked with Collins in Columbia, and the trip back to Earth began soon afterward. The Apollo 11 lunar module with its four landing-gear footpads deployed.

  13. Apollo 11 Return to Earth

    NASA mission overview. Images: NASA. 24th July 1969: The day the Apollo 11 crew made it safely back to Earth and fulfilled the goal set by US President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, "to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth." Following Lunar Module Eagle's successful rendez-vous with the Michael Collins who had been orbiting the ...

  14. Apollo 11 Splashdown 45 Years Ago on July 24, 1969 Concludes 1st Moon

    The three man crew of NASA's Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 45 years ago today on July 24, 1969 - successfully concluding Earth's first journey to land humans on another world ...

  15. Remembering Apollo 11's historic Moon landing

    On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off atop a Saturn V rocket. The trip to the Moon took four days. After spending about 36 hours on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin lifted off in the Lunar Module, rendezvoused with Michael Collins in the Command Module and headed back to Earth. ... The trio linked up again ...

  16. 50 Years Ago: Hornet + 3

    Johnson Space Center. Jul 24, 2019. Article. On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 was 47,000 miles from Earth and rapidly accelerating toward its home planet when astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins awoke for their last day in space, preparing for their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean 950 miles southwest of Hawaii.

  17. Apollo 11 Moon Landing Facts

    By mentalfloss .com | Oct 24, 2023, 10:12 AM EDT. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center with the ...

  18. What You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Mission

    NASA. At about 1:15 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the Apollo astronauts woke from a 10-hour rest period and were 12 hours into their 60-hour ride back from the Moon. As they got started on their day ...

  19. Apollo 11

    Apollo 11 eventually entered a nearly circular orbit between 62 and 76 miles (100 and 122 kilometers) above the surface of the Moon. ... The trip back to Earth began soon afterward. NASA/JSC. Splashdown of Apollo 11 occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) west of Hawaii on July 24. The astronauts were immediately placed ...

  20. Apollo 11 moon landing 50th anniversary, we look to the future of space

    Countdown to a new era in space. Fifty years ago this month, astronauts walked on the moon for the first time. Apollo 11's success—just 66 years after the Wright brothers' first flight ...

  21. 50 Years Ago: Apollo 11 Returns to Houston

    Apollo 11 splashed down 950 miles southwest of Hawaii on July 24, 1969. The Command Module (CM) Columbia and the crew of Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins were successfully recovered and delivered aboard the prime recovery ship the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12). Requirements to prevent back contamination of the Earth with any possible lunar ...

  22. Neil Armstrong's Missing Moondust

    On July 24, the Apollo 11 team reentered Earth's atmosphere. They'd left the lunar module on the moon. ... "Each trip got longer and longer." ... and they've never fallen back to Earth ...

  23. Thomas Stafford, 93, Commander of First U.S.-Soviet Space Mission, Dies

    The Apollo-Soyuz mission, amid the Cold War, broke new ground in space cooperation when an American capsule docked with a Soviet craft 140 miles above the earth. By Richard Goldstein Thomas P ...

  24. Apollo 11: Returning from the Moon

    On July 21, 1969, command and service module pilot Michael Collins photographed this close-up view of the docking target on the Apollo 11 Lunar Module from the Command Module. The image was captured during docking in lunar orbit as Mission Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin returned from the lunar surface. Collins had remained in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin ...

  25. Starfield: All Earth Landmarks

    Apollo 11 (Moon) Another Landmark that's not on Earth, but is worth visiting, is the Apollo 11 Landmark. These were humanity's first steps on a world beyond their own.