Skip to content

Apollo 11 Moon landing, Neil Armstrong's first step (1969)

scienceJul 20, 20261365,672

On July 20, 1969, NASA's Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface with the words "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." The mission commander Armstrong exited the Eagle about 6 hours and 39 minutes after landing, and Aldrin joined him about 19 minutes later. Michael Collins remained in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin conducted surface activities, collected rock and soil samples, and took photographs including the famous image showing Aldrin and the Eagle. Broadcasts of the landing reached the world via ground stations such as Honeysuckle Creek and the Parkes radio telescope. The Apollo Guidance Computer software later grew to roughly 145,000 lines of code, and humans have not returned to the Moon since 1972.

Michael Legel
@mjlegel.bsky.social

Apollo 11 successfully landed on the Moon on this day in 1969. I remember watching it on a small and grainy B&W TV.

199018h ago
This Many Years Ago
@thismanyyearsago.bsky.social

57 years ago, on the 20th of July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, as part of the Apollo 11 mission. The last time humans were on the moon was in 1972. #otd #history 🗃️

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in a photograph taken by Neil Armstrong, who can be seen in the visor reflection along with Earth, the Lunar Module Eagle, and the U.S. flag.
26222h ago