Man On The Moon: Looking Back At One Of America’s Greatest Achievements

Some of the fifty year old newspapers which were used for this article.

As a boy of 13 in the summer of 1969 I was mesmerized, as was the rest of the world, when American men walked on the moon in a quest which carried a risk of unknown proportions.
It was the end of a decade of tumultuous changes across America. The mission to the moon brought the entire nation together for at least that week in July.
I began to save newspapers from the time of lift-off to splashdown. Now, 50 years later, I still have a lot of those newspapers.
In perusing these relics we’ve decided that the reprinting of those news articles of the day was the best way to tell the real story of that historic and courageous mission. —Brendan Smith, Editor

The Apollo 11 Astronauts (L to R) Neil A. Armstrong, Commander; Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot; Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot.

New York Post – Tuesday, July 15th, 1969
Moon Men: We Have No Fear
On the day before they leave for the moon, the Apollo 11 astronauts were pronounced fit for flight today and Neil A. Armstrong, the spaceship commander said, “The three of us have no fear launching out this expedition.” Armstrong, set to become earth’s first messenger on the moon, added. “I’m sure that American Ingenuity and American craftsmanship have given us the best equipment that can be made available.”
Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins will be awakened at 4:15am, undergo a brief medical examination and breakfast at 5am. A half hour later they put on their spacesuits and arrive at the launch pad 2 hours and 40 minutes before lift off at 9:32am.
Some commentators had expressed concern that the samples of moon soil the astronauts hope to bring back might explode when the lunar lander is pressurized with oxygen for leaving the airless moon.
“We have examined this in great detail for five years,” said Dr. George Low, spacecraft program director. “There is no danger of explosion from what we know about the material. There is absolutely no concern.”
At the launch pad, crew installed batteries aboard Apollo 11’s 36-story tall Saturn 5 rocket and completed preparing the spacecraft.
An unmanned Soviet spaceship, Luna 15, continued cruising toward the moon, possibly to salvage some consolation for Russia by scooping up a sample of moon rock and bringing it to earth before Apollo 11. Luna 15 was expected to arrive at the moon Thursday.
At a nationally televised press conference last night, Aldrin was asked if he would be disappointed if the Russians first snared lunar dirt. He said: “I’m sure all of us would. We’d like to return with everything we set out to do on this flight.”
Their precise flight plan calls for going into moon orbit at 1:26pm. Saturday, unlocking the lunar landing vehicle from the mother ship 24 hours later and touching down on the moon at 4:19pm. Sunday. Before they walk on the moon they have to check the systems to propel them back to the orbiting mother ship with Collins aboard, then try to sleep for four hours.
Their only hope of rescue is Collins, coming overhead every two hours in the immutable laws of space travel. He has the ability, at a huge cost in valuable fuel, of coming down within 9 miles of the surface.
Collins would be of help only if the lunar vehicle could not leave its self-contained launch pad and go that high to meet him. If not, their death would come after two days on the inhospitable, airless moon.

On July 16, 1969, the huge, 363-feet tall Saturn V rocket launches on the Apollo 11 mission from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:32 a.m.

New York Post – Wednesday, July 16th
On The Way
Reaching for a dream, America’s Apollo 11 astronauts soared into space today on the voyage of the ages – an attempt to land men on the moon.
Flawlessly they passed the first crucial milestones of the mission – launch, insertion into earth orbit, blasting free from earth orbit and separation from and redocking with the lunar module, still housed in the spent third-stage booster. The astronauts later pulled the lunar module free from its space garage and sent the spent third stage off in orbit of the sun.
Civilian commander Neil A. Armstrong, Air Force Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr and Air Force Lt Col. Michael Collins started the journey on the awesome power of the Saturn 5 super-rocket that thundered from Cape Kennedy at 9:32am.
The rocket screamed on its pad for nine seconds as a computer system made certain all five booster engines reached full thrust of 7.7 million pounds – more powerful than 92,000 locomotives or 50,000 automobiles.
When the computer senses all was right, it commanded four 40,000-pound steel restraining arms to fly away from the pulsating giant.
With agonizing slowness the Saturn 5 climbed on a wide pillar of fire, gradually picking up speed as its hungry power plant gulped fuel at the rate of 15 tons a second.
After 12 seconds, the guidance system tipped the rocket slightly onto a southeast heading and it sped out over the Atlantic.
After 2 ½ minutes of flight, the first stage shut down and the second stage separated and flashed to life.
Two and one-half hours later, the still-attached Saturn third stage fired a second time to hurl Apollo 11 out of earth’s orbit and start racing toward the moon.
Half an hour after this maneuver, the astronauts separated from their command ship, pivoted around 180 degrees and gingerly poked the harpoon-like docking mechanism into a connecting device in the nose of the lunar module, cradled atop the third stage.
The two ships locked nose to nose, streaked outward toward the distant target.
The firing of the third stage increased their speed from about 17,400 to 24,200 miles per hour, enough to break the grip of the earth’s gravity.

Astronaut “Buzz” Aldrin makes his way down the Lunar Module to join Neil Armstrong on the moon.

New York Post – Thursday, July 17th
Half Way
America’s Apollo 11 explorers soared past the halfway point of their journey to the moon today and fired a brief burst of their spaceship engine to zero in on their target.
The mid-course engine firing lasted only three seconds and increased Apollo 11’s speed by only 14 mph. But it adjusted the path so the astronauts will pass within 69 miles of the moon’s backside on Saturday-precisely where they want to be to inject themselves into orbit to start their exploration. Had they continued on their previous course, their closest approach would have been 201 miles. The successful firing of the 20,500-pound-thrust engine was a reassuring sound to spacecraft commander Neil A. Armstrong, Air Force Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. and Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Collins.
This is the power plant that must blast them into lunar orbit before Armstrong and Aldrin descend to the surface and must also work to start them home next Monday. “It was a good burn,” mission control told the astronauts.
Apollo 11 reached the midpoint of its trek at 10:33 a.m. when the 48-ton space ship was precisely 120,003 miles from both earth and moon.
The astronauts crossed the invisible line after 25 hours 53 seconds of flight at a speed of about 3080mph. It will take them twice as long-51 hours to cover the remaining distance. Like a car coasting uphill, the spaceship gradually slowed from its initial speed of 24,200 mph.
Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins remained tightlipped, the least talkative Apollo crew yet, as their earth shrank in the distance. Throughout the morning they conducted spaceship checks and when they talked it usually was to report on the condition of systems.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Newsday – Saturday, July 19th, 1969
Moonmen Poised For Big Step
Three American astronauts are entering their weekend on the moon: the goal of their mission and the culmination of a centuries-old dream. For Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E.(Buzz) Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins, the first in an unprecedented series of thrills and hazards begins this afternoon when they fire their critical Service Propulsion System engine to go into lunar orbit.
The maneuver, designed to brake the speeding spacecraft sufficiently to allow it to be captured by the moon’s gravity and swung into an orbital path, will be carried out behind the moon, where the crew will be out of communication with Mission Control in Houston.
The elliptical orbit of 69 by 196 miles above the surface will become after two revolutions a nearly circular 62-by-76-mile orbit which, because of unevenness in the moon’s gravity, will become the required 69-mile circular orbit by Monday night. That is when the moon lander will be returning from the lunar surface and seeking to rendezvous and dock with the orbiting command module.
This morning the spaceship raced into the shadow of the moon and for the first time the astronauts were able to pick out lunar landscape features, illuminated by light reflected from the earth the moon’s surface was clearly distinguishable.
“It’s quite an eerie sight,” he said. With the moon blotting out the sun’s glare, Collins said: “We’re able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time in the trip. It’s a real change for us.”
The spaceship’s course was so accurate, a corrective rocket firing scheduled for 5:26 AM if needed was canceled and the astronauts were told to get more sleep.
Soviet officials told astronaut Frank Borman yesterday that their Luna 15 satellite orbiting the moon would not be in position to interfere with the orbiting Apollo 11 command ship or its moon lander.
Borman, who recently returned from a tour of the Soviet Union, received the information in a call to M. V. Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. However, Russian officials gave no clue as to the mission of Luna 15.
Tonight, Aldrin, the LM pilot, enters the spidery module that he and Armstrong will ride to the moon tomorrow and gives it a 90-minute checkout in preparation for the role that it was created for more than six years ago by the Grumman Aerospace Corp. of Bethpage, L.I.
Yesterday, for the first time since Wednesday’s launch, the astronauts took a look at the vehicle that will carry their fate and the nation’s hopes between the command module and the moon. They liked what they saw. A two-hour checkout of the LM’s systems proved that everything was functioning properly. In fact, Armstrong and Aldrin found that Collins, the command module pilot, had done such a good job of docking the two crafts during the early stages of the translunar coast that “there isn’t a dent or a mark on the docking probe.”

Newsday – Monday, July 21
LM: Performance Was Flawless
The 32,000 pound vehicle that brought the first men to a pillow-soft land in the moon’s Sea Of Tranquility yesterday performed with a precision that seemed to make man’s greatest voyage look too easy.
Originally named the Lunar Excursion Module and christened Eagle for its maiden descent, the four-legged, spider-like craft was the only major component of the Apollo 11 system that had never been full tested. Space officials and designers of the craft said there was not a single malfunction of the Eagle from the time it was sprung loose from the mother Ship Columbia at 1:47pm until 4:18pm when the vehicle settled gently to the moon in a 40-foot high cloud of lunar dust kicked up by its descent engine.
“Eagle has landed,” came the voice of Eagle’s commander, Neil A. Armstrong. After skirting a lunar rock pile with a sideways burst of the small rockets of the vehicle’s reaction control system, Armstrong put the craft down virtually level. It stood at a barely perceptible tilt of 4.5 degrees, far short of the 30-degree tilt which the astronauts would have had to worry about the craft tipping over.

Carrying equipment to be set up on the moon’s surface to conduct experiments.

Newsday – Monday, July 21st
Men Walk On The Moon
Man stepped out of the cradle of the earth last night. Two men walked on the moon. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr. demonstrated to a world watching on TV that human beings can reach, and function with ease and safety, in the hostile environment of, another celestial body.
Then, following a flight plan with machinelike precision, they checked out their Grumman-built moon ship and prepared for the critical takeoff today. While on the surface of the moon for more than two hours last night and early today, the Apollo 11 spacemen performed their assigned tasks with almost unbelievable coolness and precision.
From the moment Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface at 10:56pm until they slammed closed the hatch of their moon lander at 1:10am today, the astronauts were never in difficulty, never threatened by the myriad dangers that could have afflicted them.
They performed all of the scientific experiments and chores asked of them. They undertook all of their planned ceremonial duties. They even worked overtime on the surface because things were going so smoothly.
Armstrong set the tone of the mission when, in full view of an automatic television camera, he first stepped onto the sandy surface and proclaimed evenly: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Earlier, when the module first touched the moon surface, he had radioed back the bound-for-destiny message, “Eagle has landed.”
Doctors in Mission Control said that both men had reacted very well to the lunar conditions, which include a gravity only one-sixth that of the earth. Their heart rates ranged from lows of 64, about normal-to a peak for Armstrong of 160 when he was performing a strenuous activity, and high for Aldrin of 125. It was reported that neither man received any radiation from the sun while on the surface.
Except for a reference to the moon’s “stark beauty” by Armstrong, the commander, they expressed little response to their strange new world that was not technically oriented.
Moving constantly and adopting a tilted, loping stride that occasionally gave them the appearance of marionettes-Armstrong and Aldrin planted the U.S. flag and offered it a salute. They collected two boxes of lunar soil and rocks and deployed three scientific experiments designed to unlock lunar secrets that could open new insights into the origin of the earth.
They completed their work within the allotted period and returned to their module to eat, rest and prepare for the return to earth, which begins with this afternoon’s critical liftoff.
Then Armstrong and Aldrin will join the third crew member, – Michael Collins, who was orbiting the moon in the command module like an anxious husband driving around the block while his wife shops.

Plaque left by Apollo 11 Astronauts upon the moon’s surface.

New York Post – Monday, July 21st
Now The Long Way Home
Two Americans, who explored the moon’s surface for the first time and raised their nation’s banner above it, started preparations today for the perilous blastoff for the long journey home to earth.
It will be a suspenseful moment. Never before has a rocket lifted anything off the moon.
Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. awoke at Tranquility Base on the moon and plunged into systems checks on the lander and engine on which, again, they will stake their lives.
The bottom section of the craft, with the four landing legs, will serve as a launch pad and will be left on the moon when they fire the single engine that powers the cabin section of the ship called Eagle.
The firing, scheduled to last more than 7 minutes, was set for 1:54pm. EDT.
Mission Control awakened the moon men shortly after 11am, following a 6-hour rest period. Instruments that monitored Armstrong during the night indicated he slept fitfully.
There is only one set of biomedical instruments in the cabin so Aldrin was not monitored.
Sleeping in the cramped quarters of the LM is difficult and Aldrin reported: “Neil has been lying on the engine cover and I curled up on the floor.”
Checking of systems and switch settings for the critical liftoff was the No. 1 priority after wakeup.
A successful liftoff will shoot them into lunar orbit to chase down Michael Collins, orbiting about 65 miles overhead in the Apollo 11 command ship, Columbia.
Once linked up, they plan to fire themselves back toward earth early tomorrow, ending a space odyssey in which they etched their names beside those of history’s great explorers, Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, da Gama and Byrd.
But what a difference.
When Columbus landed in the New World, Spain’s Queen Isabella didn’t hear about it for six weeks. Through the magic of television, an estimated 500 million people around the World had a ringside seat at man’s greatest adventure.
It was unforgettable. Armstrong climbed through the LM hatch and started backing down a nine-rung ladder. On the second rung from the bottom, he opened a compartment, exposing a television camera.
The picture was black and white and somewhat jerky, but it recorded history.
Among scientists, there was elation that the crew had landed in an area with a variety of rocks, a treasure that held the hope of a rich payoff in the search to learn more about moon and earth.
As Armstrong planted his left boot on the powder surface at 10:56pm. yesterday he said: “That’s one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”
The camera trained on Aldrin as he stepped on the far shore 20 minutes later and exclaimed: “Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation.”
When Aldrin, a deeply religious man, relayed this message to the world shortly after the landing:
“This is the LMT pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening, whoever, wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”
They, planted an American flag and saluted it, but made it plain they came to the moon as ambassadors for all mankind.
They unveiled a stainless steel plaque bearing the words:
“Here men from planet earth first set foot upon the moon, July, 1969. A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
They left on the moon a disc on which’ messages from the leaders of 76 nations had been recorded.
They will return to earth with them the flags of 136 nations, including Russia.

Astronaut Michel Collins’ photo from the command module showing the lunar module coming in for docking.

New York Post – Tuesday, July 22nd
Moonmen Link Up With Home Ship
The first two men to land on the moon rose from the lunar surface today and rejoined the spaceship which will return them to earth.
With millions of earthlings anxiously awaiting the safe return of Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr. to the Apollo command craft in lunar orbit, these two pioneers of a walk on another sphere carried out a successful linkup at 5:35pm. New York time.
They flew Eagle, their landing craft, from Tranquility Base on the moon’s surface to Columbia. The Apollo 11 command craft manned by Michael Collins, in three hours and 19 minutes.
Once in rendezvous, Collins steered the bullet-shaped command module the final 100 feet for linkup, and conversation from space at the time indicated a wild docking but a safe one.
“That was a pretty one,” said Collins when a few seconds of gyrations had died down. “You know, I didn’t feel a thud. And I thought we were great, and I went to retract (final latching) and that’s when all hell broke loose…You guys were jerking around quite a bit.”
“Somehow or another we got off in altitude,” said Armstrong, who had been attempting to hold Eagle steady as Collins moved for linkup.
“Yeah, that sure was busy for a couple of seconds,” said Collins.
But despite the gyrations, there was no real problem and everything was still “go” for firing the big Apollo steering rocket early tomorrow for the cruise back to earth.
“You’re looking good,” said earth control an hour after the linkup. “It’s been a mighty fine day.”
For almost two hours, Armstrong and Aldrin used a vacuum cleaner in an attempt to clean every speck of lunar dust from their suits and the outside of the rock boxes they took aboard with them.
This was part of the decontamination operation involved in the elaborate quarantine procedures designed to eliminate any possible threat that lunar material brought back to earth might contain potentially hazard germs.

Apollo 11 Astronauts splashdown successfully on July 24 about 900 miles southwest of Hawaii in the North Pacific Ocean.

New York Post – Thursday, July 24th
Spashdown
ABOARD U. S. S. HORNET (AP)- The men who opened the Moon Age returned home today, received a chemical bath before the eyes of the world and were hoisted aboard this carrier for a welcome from President Nixon.
Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins steered their Apollo 11 spaceship to a near-pinpoint landing in the Pacific nine miles from this recovery ship.
The capsule was flipped upside down by a wave but it was quickly righted.
They hit the warm Polynesian waters at 12:50pm, climaxing an 8-day voyage of discovery in which two men walked the surface of the moon for the first time.

President Richard Nixon greets the Apollo 11 Astronauts in their 35-foot trailer where they stayed during a 2½-day sea-air trip to the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston. They faced 16 days of additional quarantine.

The astronauts immediately were placed behind a biological barrier on the remote chance that they had brought home lunar bacteria that could harm life on earth.
Before exiting the ship into a wave-tossed raft, they donned special pea green biological suits with a mask that prevented them from exhaling their breath into the air.
In the raft, a frogman wearing a biological suit sprayed them with a disinfectant and then rubbed each man vigorously with a solution similar to a washday bleach. They sealed the spaceship hatch and rubbed it with the chemical.
The ship was not close enough for television to record the landing. But it steamed near enough for TV viewers around the world to view the rubdown. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were lifted one by one into a helicopter which deposited them on the deck of the carrier at 1:57 pm. one hour and 7 minutes after splashdown.
Nixon watched from the bridge as the helicopter approached. The ship’s band played “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” Columbia is the name the astronauts gave their command ship.
Nixon applauded and waved as the helicopter touched the deck, and hundreds of sailors cheered the returning moon heroes.
A small truck hooked to the chopper and pulled it, with the astronauts inside, to an elevator, which lowered them to the hangar deck.
There, the astronauts transferred into a 35-foot trailer where they will stay during a 2½-day sea-air trip to the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston.
There they face 16 days of additional quarantine.
Welcoming them to the trailer were Dr. William Carpentier, NASA physician, and John Hirasaki, NASA engineer, both of whom volunteered to be isolated with the astronauts.

NASA control center celebrates the successful moon mission.

Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins looked like strangers from another world as they stepped off the helicopter and walked the 12 steps to the quarantine trailer.
They waved to acknowledge the cheers and applause of the NASA and Navy personnel on board.
In Mission Control Center in Houston, scores of persons broke out small American flags. On the display board were flashed President Kennedy’s words of May 25, 1961, when he pledged this country to land men on the moon in this decade and return them safely to earth.