Moon Landing Book Report

Cancel Subscription. Gaia What Is Powerless In To Kill A Mockingbird 8 min Universal Healthcare In Costa Rica. Legend the night train poem. The many allegations in Kaysing's book effectively began discussion of the Moon landings being Moon Landing Book Report. Air and Space Magazine. Archived from the original on November 9,

Inside NASA's Last Moon Mission

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Sign The Petition. Complete Schedule. Full Day Trips. Overnight Trips. Multi Day Trips. Long Range Trips. Private Charters. Whale Watching. Other key personnel who played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission include the following. The Apollo 11 mission emblem was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". At Lovell's suggestion, he chose the bald eagle , the national bird of the United States, as the symbol.

Tom Wilson, a simulator instructor, suggested an olive branch in its beak to represent their peaceful mission. Collins added a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins decided the Eagle and the Moon would be in their natural colors, and decided on a blue and gold border. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11", [68] and they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing".

Bob Gilruth , the director of the MSC felt the talons of the eagle looked "too warlike". Anthony dollar unveiled in The name Snowcone was used for the CM and Haystack was used for the LM in both internal and external communications during early mission planning. The LM was named Eagle after the motif which was featured prominently on the mission insignia. It also referred to Columbia , a historical name of the United States. The astronauts had personal preference kits PPKs , small bags containing personal items of significance they wanted to take with them on the mission.

Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the Wright brothers ' Wright Flyer ' s left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing, [79] along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on that mission and given to Slayton afterwards, but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton. Armstrong took it with him on Apollo These were the result of two years' worth of studies based on high-resolution photography of the lunar surface by the five uncrewed probes of the Lunar Orbiter program and information about surface conditions provided by the Surveyor program.

Scientific value was not a consideration. Areas that appeared promising on photographs taken on Earth were often found to be totally unacceptable. The original requirement that the site be free of craters had to be relaxed, as no such site was found. The requirement for the Sun angle was particularly restrictive, limiting the launch date to one day per month. In May , Apollo 10's lunar module flew to within 15 kilometers 9. During the first press conference after the Apollo 11 crew was announced, the first question was, "Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step onto the lunar surface?

One of the first versions of the egress checklist had the lunar module pilot exit the spacecraft before the commander, which matched what had been done on Gemini missions, [90] where the commander had never performed the spacewalk. Aldrin heard that Armstrong would be the first because Armstrong was a civilian, which made Aldrin livid. Aldrin attempted to persuade other lunar module pilots he should be first, but they responded cynically about what they perceived as a lobbying campaign. Attempting to stem interdepartmental conflict, Slayton told Aldrin that Armstrong would be first since he was the commander.

The decision was announced in a press conference on April 14, For decades, Aldrin believed the final decision was largely driven by the lunar module's hatch location. Because the astronauts had their spacesuits on and the spacecraft was so small, maneuvering to exit the spacecraft was difficult. The crew tried a simulation in which Aldrin left the spacecraft first, but he damaged the simulator while attempting to egress.

While this was enough for mission planners to make their decision, Aldrin and Armstrong were left in the dark on the decision until late spring. Armstrong said, "Yes, that's the way to do it. The media accused Armstrong of exercising his commander's prerogative to exit the spacecraft first. They argued that the first person to walk on the Moon should be like Charles Lindbergh , a calm and quiet person. They made the decision to change the flight plan so the commander was the first to egress from the spacecraft. The only change in the configuration of the command module was the removal of some insulation from the forward hatch.

At on May 20, the 5,tonne 5,long-ton; 6,short-ton assembly departed the Vehicle Assembly Building atop the crawler-transporter , bound for Launch Pad 39A, part of Launch Complex 39 , while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon. A countdown test commenced on June 26, and concluded on July 2. The launch complex was floodlit on the night of July 15, when the crawler-transporter carried the mobile service structure back to its parking area. Slayton roused the crew shortly after , and they showered, shaved, and had the traditional pre-flight breakfast of steak and eggs with Slayton and the backup crew. They then donned their space suits and began breathing pure oxygen.

At , they headed out to Launch Complex Along with a technician, he helped Armstrong into the left-hand couch at Five minutes later, Collins joined him, taking up his position on the right-hand couch. Finally, Aldrin entered, taking the center couch. The closeout crew then left the launch complex about an hour before launch time. The countdown became automated at three minutes and twenty seconds before launch time. An estimated one million spectators watched the launch of Apollo 11 from the highways and beaches in the vicinity of the launch site. Dignitaries included the Chief of Staff of the United States Army , General William Westmoreland , four cabinet members , 19 state governors , 40 mayors , 60 ambassadors and congressmen.

Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson. The launch was televised live in 33 countries, with an estimated 25 million viewers in the United States alone. Millions more around the world listened to radio broadcasts. Full shutdown of the first-stage engines occurred about 2 minutes and 42 seconds into the mission, followed by separation of the S-IC and ignition of the S-II engines. The second stage engines then cut off and separated at about 9 minutes and 8 seconds, allowing the first ignition of the S-IVB engine a few seconds later.

Apollo 11 entered a near-circular Earth orbit at an altitude of About 30 minutes later, with Collins in the left seat and at the controls, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed. This involved separating Columbia from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with Eagle still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon. A slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an orbit around the Sun.

On July 19 at UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. The site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers and the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and because it was unlikely to present major landing or EVA challenges. As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves passing landmarks on the surface two or three seconds early, and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point.

Eagle was traveling too fast. Flight Director Gene Kranz speculated that it could have resulted from extra air pressure in the docking tunnel. Or it could have been the result of Eagle ' s pirouette maneuver. Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6, feet 1, m above the surface of the Moon, the LM guidance computer LGC distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected and program alarms. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all its tasks in real-time and had to postpone some of them.

To blame the computer for the Apollo 11 problems is like blaming the person who spots a fire and calls the fire department. Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software. The software's action, in this case, was to eliminate lower priority tasks and re-establish the more important ones. The computer, rather than almost forcing an abort, prevented an abort. If the computer hadn't recognized this problem and taken recovery action, I doubt if Apollo 11 would have been the successful Moon landing it was. During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time.

Having the rendezvous radar on so it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up. The extra spurious cycle stealing , as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms. When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a foot-diameter 91 m crater later determined to be West crater , so he took semi-automatic control.

Throughout the descent, Aldrin called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting Eagle. Now feet 33 m above the surface, Armstrong knew their propellant supply was dwindling and was determined to land at the first possible landing site. Armstrong found a clear patch of ground and maneuvered the spacecraft towards it. As he got closer, now feet 76 m above the surface, he discovered his new landing site had a crater in it. He cleared the crater and found another patch of level ground. They were now feet 30 m from the surface, with only 90 seconds of propellant remaining.

Lunar dust kicked up by the LM's engine began to impair his ability to determine the spacecraft's motion. Some large rocks jutted out of the dust cloud, and Armstrong focused on them during his descent so he could determine the spacecraft's speed. A light informed Aldrin that at least one of the inch cm probes hanging from Eagle 's footpads had touched the surface a few moments before the landing and he said: "Contact light!

Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong shut the engine down. ACA—out of detent. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm—off. LGC address contained the variable that indicated the LM had landed. Information available to the crew and mission controllers during the landing showed the LM had enough fuel for another 25 seconds of powered flight before an abort without touchdown would have become unsafe, [8] [] but post-mission analysis showed that the real figure was probably closer to 50 seconds. This was later found to be the result of greater propellant 'slosh' than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor.

On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this. The Eagle has landed. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot. This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and 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. He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space.

As such, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church , and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, Dean Woodruff. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July Eagle ' s hatch was opened at The remote control unit on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly MESA folded against Eagle 's side and activate the TV camera.

Apollo 11 used slow-scan television TV incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor thus, a broadcast of a broadcast , significantly reducing the quality of the picture. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia. After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder", [13] at , [] six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle 's footpad and declared: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.

Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory.

A more recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. Other analysis points to the claims of static and slurring as "face-saving fabrication", and that Armstrong himself later admitted to misspeaking the line. About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM.

Still photography was accomplished with a Hasselblad camera that could be operated hand held or mounted on Armstrong's Apollo space suit. He described the view with the simple phrase: "Magnificent desolation. Armstrong said moving in the lunar gravity , one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations It's absolutely no trouble to walk around. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle 's shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, but the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.

As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust, which soiled the outer part of their suits. The astronauts planted the Lunar Flag Assembly containing a flag of the United States on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Aldrin remembered, "Of all the jobs I had to do on the Moon the one I wanted to go the smoothest was the flag raising. Aldrin was afraid it might topple in front of TV viewers. But he gave "a crisp West Point salute". Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House.

I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure that they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth.

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth. Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and a curiosity, and men with a vision for the future. It's an honor for us to be able to participate here today. They deployed the EASEP , which included a passive seismic experiment package used to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector array used for the lunar laser ranging experiment.

He used the geologist's hammer to pound in the tubes—the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11—but was unable to penetrate more than 6 inches 15 cm deep. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes. Aldrin shoveled 6 kilograms 13 lb of soil into the box of rocks in order to pack them in tightly. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. All have subsequently been found on Earth. While on the surface, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM ladder, bearing two drawings of Earth of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres , an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon.

The inscription read:. Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July , A. We came in peace for all mankind. Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong his metabolic rates were high, and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. As metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a minute extension. Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing This proved to be an inefficient tool, and later missions preferred to carry equipment and samples up to the LM by hand. Armstrong then jumped onto the ladder's third rung, and climbed into the LM.

After transferring to LM life support , the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, an empty Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. The hatch was closed again at They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep. Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. Haldeman , in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon.

There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. A felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at UTC, they lifted off in Eagle 's ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator , but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over.

During his day flying solo around the Moon, Collins never felt lonely. Although it has been said "not since Adam has any human known such solitude", [] Collins felt very much a part of the mission. In his autobiography he wrote: "this venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two". One of Collins' first tasks was to identify the lunar module on the ground. To give Collins an idea where to look, Mission Control radioed that they believed the lunar module landed about 4 miles 6. Each time he passed over the suspected lunar landing site, he tried in vain to find the module.

On his first orbits on the back side of the Moon, Collins performed maintenance activities such as dumping excess water produced by the fuel cells and preparing the cabin for Armstrong and Aldrin to return. Just before he reached the dark side on the third orbit, Mission Control informed Collins there was a problem with the temperature of the coolant. If it became too cold, parts of Columbia might freeze. Mission Control advised him to assume manual control and implement Environmental Control System Malfunction Procedure Instead, Collins flicked the switch on the system from automatic to manual and back to automatic again, and carried on with normal housekeeping chores, while keeping an eye on the temperature.

When Columbia came back around to the near side of the Moon again, he was able to report that the problem had been resolved. For the next couple of orbits, he described his time on the back side of the Moon as "relaxing". While the flight plan called for Eagle to meet up with Columbia , Collins was prepared for a contingency in which he would fly Columbia down to meet Eagle. Eagle ' s ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit at Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle 's orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface.

On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented:. The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of people All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, "Thank you very much.

Aldrin added:. This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. Armstrong concluded:. The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU , the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface.

We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease.

Greg was later thanked by Armstrong. Hornet was then at her home port of Long Beach, California. To make room, most of Hornet ' s air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a boilerplate command module used for training. After a night on board, they would fly to Hornet in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. McCain Jr. Paine , who flew to Hornet from Pago Pago in one of Hornet ' s carrier onboard delivery aircraft. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area.

Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule difficult, and strong upper-level winds which "would have ripped their parachutes to shreds" according to Brandli, posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission. Houston Jr. On their recommendation, Rear Admiral Donald C. A new location was selected nautical miles km northeast. This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, trajectory event P64 was followed by P For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip.

In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead, P65 led directly to P The crew were also warned they would not be in a full-lift heads-down attitude when they entered P Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon.

This was observed by the helicopters. During splashdown , Columbia landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts. The divers then passed biological isolation garments BIGs to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site.

The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and Columbia wiped with Povidone-iodine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board Hornet. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk. After touchdown on Hornet at UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the 30 feet 9. He told them: "[A]s a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before. After Nixon departed, Hornet was brought alongside the 5-short-ton 4.

It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. Columbia was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law , a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol, [] the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on Hornet , and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory , the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study. On August 13, the three astronauts rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees.

Burger and his predecessor, Earl Warren , and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. Nixon and Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on September 16, They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate , that they had carried with them to the surface of the Moon. This celebration began a day world tour that brought the astronauts to 22 foreign countries and included visits with the leaders of many countries.

Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. New phrases permeated into the English language. While most people celebrated the accomplishment, disenfranchised Americans saw it as a symbol of the divide in America, evidenced by protesters outside of Kennedy Space Center the day before Apollo 11 launched. Ralph Abernathy , leading a protest march, was so captivated by the spectacle of the Apollo 11 launch that he forgot what he was going to say. A rat done bit my sister Nell. Twenty percent of the world's population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. While Apollo 11 sparked the interest of the world, the follow-on Apollo missions did not hold the interest of the nation.

Landing someone on the Moon was an easy goal to understand; lunar geology was too abstract for the average person. Another is that Kennedy's goal of landing humans on the Moon had already been accomplished. While most Americans were proud of their nation's achievements in space exploration, only once during the late s did the Gallup Poll indicate that a majority of Americans favored "doing more" in space as opposed to "doing less". By , 59 percent of those polled favored cutting spending on space exploration.

This was also a time when inflation was rising, which put pressure on the government to reduce spending. What saved the space program was that it was one of the few government programs that had achieved something great. Drastic cuts, warned Caspar Weinberger , the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget , might send a signal that "our best years are behind us". After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically.

The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it. The command module Columbia went on a tour of the United States, visiting 49 state capitals, the District of Columbia , and Anchorage, Alaska. Lunar satellite photos show the Apollo 11 flag has likely fallen over but the Apollo 12, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 flagpoles are still upright.

However, the effects of powerful cosmic radiation washing over the Moon have most likely bleached the flags white. After the Moon landing was successfully completed and the three astronauts returned safely to Earth, the three men recounted their experience. And between and , the space agency spent Read more about the cost here: What it worth spending billions on sending man to the Moon? Once the astronauts safely returned to Earth, the Apollo 11 crew had to spend 21 days in quarantine.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent nearly 22 hours on the Moon in total but less than three hours on the surface. Astronomers estimate the Moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth at a rate of 1. The Moon was most likely created when a Mars-sized object struck the Earth 4. When viewed from Earth, the Moon and the Sun are roughly the same size, which is why we observe solar eclipses. There is water on the Moon but it is trapped in the form of ice caps around the satellites poles. Viral video of 'strange figure' sparks claims 'aliens' are among us New volcano beneath Mexico could be forming. Image: NASA. UFO report: Congress given confidential briefing before release.