STS-134, T-15 days - Apollo 11 1969 - Tranquillity Base

By now you know the mechanics of how we got to the moon and if you remember any history, that it was Apollo 11 that made the trip with the first landing.

First Step on the Moon

It was July of 1969.  The race to the moon was literally down to the wire.  The Soviets had a program to send an unmanned craft to the moon and return with samples.  By the time of Apollo 11's launch, the Soviets had failed twice and they launched their third Luna mission to get samples three days before the Apollo 11 launch.  It was a down to the wire race.  It was so close that the Soviets release their flight plans to NASA to insure there would be no chances of collisions.  The Luna crash landed and the race was ours to win.

It was a Sunday when they descended to the moon.  I was 15.  At the time, I worked evenings and weekends at a bowling alley keeping score for the bowling leagues.  Think caddy for bowling.  Around 1 pm, as I was getting ready to go to work, we watched the coverage, which was mostly listening to the capsule communications with graphics on the screen, as the LEM called Eagle departed the SCM called Columbia and descended towards the surface.  There was little news anchor chatter and just the radio communication between Eagle and NASA.  The anchors had already gone over what to expect so many times that everyone knew the steps.

Second Man on the Moon

As Eagle descended there was a constant stream of messages back and forth.  Some of it was very technical and hard to follow, but as they got close the calling out of the altitude was unmistakable.  When it finally stopped counting distance, it seemed like they had landed.  We were not sure though until Neil Armstrong radioed, " Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."  No one expected him to call it Tranquillity Base, but naming it that after the name of the crater, was thrilling.

They were supposed to sleep for a while.  I went to work.  Later that evening we heard that they decided to go ahead and walk on the moon, that evening.  It was a little after 7pm.  I don't remember if it was between leagues or if everyone just stopped to watch, but I was in the bar watching on TV when they left the LEM to climb down the ladder to the moon.  They had rigged up a camera on the outside of the LEM to film them climbing down.  It was broadcast live.  A few moments later we heard Armstrong declare, " "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" 

Quarantine after return

They walked on the moon for over two and a half hours deploying a number of experiments and collecting samples.  Three days and 47 pounds of moon rocks later, they returned to Earth.  The race to the moon won, and Kennedy's challenge met.  It was an incredible decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11