Uttering the immortal phrase “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” commander Neil Armstrong made history on July 20, 1969, as he became the fist human being to walk on the Moon.Īrmstrong’s historic step on to the dusty surface of the landing spot – The Sea of Tranquillity – was captured by a television camera, and its live signal was fed back to NASA Mission Control in Houston - and to the wider world. Saluting the American flag, J(Image: Widnes Weekly News) Several times during the Eagle’s descent alarms sounded, and at one point it seemed like the computer was being overloaded.īut all went according to plan, and no one who witnessed the television images will ever forget them.
First man on the moon newspaper tv#
Millions more around the globe followed the momentous event on TV and radio as Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted off amid an inferno engulfing the ascending Saturn V.įour days later when Eagle – Apollo 11’s lunar module – separated from the command module Columbia at the far side of the Moon, the world waited to see what would happen. When it launched on July 16, 1969, from Cape Kennedy on the east coast of Florida, there were more than a million spectators packing the highways and beaches. Two months later, Apollo 8 performed the first lunar orbit and return to Earth.Īpollo 11 would be the one. Apollo 7 in October 1968 was the first crewed flight. It did - and still does - seem like the stuff of science fiction, coming little more than 65 years after the first manned airborne flight by the Wright brothers which lasted a bumpy 12 seconds and saw the primitive plane travel just 120 feet.īuzz Aldrin on the Moon (Image: Mirrorpix)īut NASA persisted, with each subsequent Apollo launch proving to be a success, as the goal of reaching the Moon drew closer. After nearly 22 hours, the two on the Moon would blast off from the surface, rejoin their colleague in space, before the three would make their return journey to Earth, land in the Pacific Ocean, and be picked up by the American Navy, alive, safe and well. Two astronauts would land on the Moon, while the third would stay in orbit. Ultimately, it was the stars and stripes flag - not the hammer and sickle - that would be unfurled on the surface of the Moon.Įven now, half-a-century after the first lunar landing, it seems so utterly improbable that three men could fly 250,000 miles to the lifeless, inhospitable world.
The Soviets had scored firsts, successfully launching the artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik,in 1957 and propelling air force pilot, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1962.īut it was Kennedy’s challenge which ignited the 1960s space race.
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