On July 20, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. detached the lunar landing craft, the Eagle, from the Apollo 11 and traveled the remaining distance to the moon. At 4:18 p.m. Eastern Time, they landed on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility. However it wasn't until six and a half hours later that Armstrong started making his first steps down the ladder to the moon. At 10:56, he looked into the camera attached to the Eagle and made one of the most memorable statements of the century: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Aldrin stepped out onto the moon just a few minutes after Armstrong. (NASA has some wonderful photos of the historic adventure.)
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Comments
I was listening to the NASA HF Relay and Tracking network on a high frequency radio in my avionics ship in Vietnam. I heard,
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Voice switching circuits don’t respond fast enough to always get an initial syllable, and we’ve been stuck with controversy ever since.
I had been listening to NASA since 1962, and it was quite a thrill.
Will I live long enough to see a lunar base established?