In his pursuit to put a man on the moon after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into outer space, and Alan Shepard’s space flight, the second man and the first American to travel into space, President John F. Kennedy then delivered his speech to a large crowd gathered at the Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962.
Officially titled as the Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, it highlighted the challenge that President Kennedy had to put a man on the moon before the decade’s end at the time—his investments for humanity will soon prove their worth.
Just seven months after the president mentioned the challenge in his speech, NASA made the audacious decision to send the Apollo 8 spacecraft all the way to the moon – the first manned flight – on the enormous Saturn V rocket.
On July 16, 1969, at the Launch Complex of the Kennedy Space Center, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins rode another Saturn V. The three-stage Saturn V rocket had propelled the Apollo 11 into space using its 7.5 million pounds of thrust.
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Engines of the Saturn V rocket began ignition and roared as its flames and smoke gushed downwards intensely while the rocket ascended and cleared the launch pad—whether it used gas or other fuel, it was propelling upwards. The crew reached the Earth’s orbit 12 minutes after. The Apollo 11 then got the go-ahead cue from the mission control to begin its path towards the moon or the “Translunar Injection.”
After three days of spaceflight, they were in the lunar orbit. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin then climbed into the lunar module named Eagle and began their descent to the moon’s surface a day later. At the same time, Michael Collins orbited in the command module Columbia.
Armstrong had to improvise to some degree in bringing the space module Eagle down in the lunar region called the “Sea of Tranquility,” manually piloting the craft on an area that was littered with boulders.
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“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed back to Mission Control on Earth. In response, Mission Control erupted in a jubilant celebration.
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With half a billion people watching the historical event unfolding right in front of their very eyes on television, Armstrong climbed down the ladder. At the climactic moment, they then heard the famous words that were etched in history for eternity—credit to him.
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” proclaimed Armstrong.
Shortly after, Aldrin joined him and offered a simple yet profound description of the lunar surface. “Magnificent desolation,” he said. For two and a half hours, both Armstrong and Aldrin explored the moon’s surface, collecting samples and taking photographs.
As they were about to leave, they planted an American flag with a pole to the lunar ground, left a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, and a plaque with inscriptions saying that men from Earth set foot on the moon and that they came in peace for all mankind, with the date of the mission—much credit was given to the astronauts.
On July 24, the crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Finally, President Kennedy’s challenge was completed, and humanity walked on the moon and returned home to Earth safely.
For the next couple of years, ten more astronauts had followed in their footsteps. Gene Cernan was the commander of the last Apollo mission.
Over the following years since the first successful Apollo 11 mission, multitudes of missions came after. Humanity’s desire to further explore the vastness of space continues to this day, with even more audacious future missions to a great degree, including future colonization of the planet Mars. When that time comes, humanity will begin a new journey since its existence and become a multi-planetary species one day.
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