The purpose of the Apollo 11 mission was to land men on the lunar surface and to
return them safely to Earth. The crew consisted of Neil A. Armstrong,
commander; Michael Collins, Command Module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.,
Lunar Module pilot.
Apollo 11 fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the Moon before the Soviet Union by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a 1961 mission statement before the United States Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
THE SPACE RACE
President Kennedy’s moon landing mandate came at the height of the space race, part of the Cold War between the United States and what was then the Soviet Union.
The USSR stunned the world in 1957 by sending the first artificial satellites into orbit, starting with the 184-pound Sputnik I. The Soviets followed that success a month later with the first animal in space, Laika the dog, which did not survive the experience. Things came to a head in April 1961, when the Soviets sent the first human to space. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made a 108-minute suborbital flight in a Vostok 1 spacecraft and returned safely to Earth.
A month later, Alan Shepherd became the first American in space with his suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. From there the two countries started upping the ante by increasing the number of orbits per flight.
APOLLO 11
After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote Manned Spacecraft Center director George M. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be more serious when naming their craft. The command 
module was named Columbia for the feminine personification of the United States used traditionally in song and poetry. Backup commander Jim Lovell recommended the name Eagle for the lunar module for the national bird of the United States, the bald eagle, which is featured prominently on the mission insignia.
In addition to throngs of people crowding highways and beaches near the launch site, millions watched the event on television, with NASA Chief of Public Information Jack King providing commentary. President Richard Nixon viewed the proceedings from the Oval Office
of the White House.
A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969. It entered orbit 12 minutes later. After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon. About 30 minutes later the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the lunar module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. After the lunar module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into solar orbit.
On July 19, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers, along with the Luna Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and therefore unlikely to present major landing challenges.
After a rest period, Armstrong and Aldrin entered the Lunar Module preparing for descent to the lunar surface. The two spacecraft were undocked at about 100 hours, when the Command and Service Modules separated from the Lunar Module. The spacecraft landed in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:18 p.m. EDT. Afterwards, they ate their first meal on the Moon and decided to begin the surface operations earlier than planned.
A Lunar Module camera provided live television coverage of Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT. Just as he stepped off the Lunar Module Neil Armstrong proclaimed, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Aldrin emerged soon after, setting foot on the lunar surface at 11:16 p.m. EDT. A
ldrin evaluated his ability to operate and move about and was able to move about rapidly and with confidence. Forty-seven pounds of lunar surface material were collected to be returned for analysis. The surface exploration was concluded in 2½ hours, when the crew re-entered the lunar module.
After lunar ascent, the Lunar Module docked with the Command and Service Modules at 128 hours. The crew transferred into the Command and Service Modules, the ascent stage was jettisoned and they prepared for trans-Earth injection. Only one midcourse correction was required, and passive thermal control was used for most of trans-Earth coast. Bad weather made it necessary to move the splashdown point 346 kilometers (215 miles) downrange. Atmospheric entry phase was normal, and the command module landed in the Pacific Ocean at 195¼ hours. The landing coordinates, as determined from the onboard computer, were 13 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and -169 degrees 15 minutes east longitude.
With the success of Apollo 11, the national objective to land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth had been accomplished successfully.
Phil Robertson, Editor
