The Day the Earth Stood Still

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It was 40 years ago that Neil Armstrong and Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr became the first humans to walk the face of the moon. Michael Collins manned and orbited above in the Apollo 11 spacecraft. According to NASA Liftoff was at 9:32 am on July 16, 1969 and at 36 stories high and with 7 1/2 million pounds of thrust . . history was about to be made. Lunar Landing was at 4:18 pm on July 20, 1969 and that is when Armstrong radioed back to the command station in Houston . ."The Eagle has landed" (The Eagle was the name of the lunar module) 6 hours later at 9:56 pm Armstrong stepped off the Eagle and said those famous words . . . "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" 15 minutes later Alden joined him on the moon and they spent the next 2 hours collecting soil samples, rocks and photos of the surface. And the American Flagged was raised. Lunar Liftoff was at 1:54 pm on July 21, 1969 Splashdown was at 12:50 pm on July 24, 1969 for a total duration of 8 days and 3 hours. It was back on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. It is sad for me to remember that is was President Richard Nixon who was in office (he lost the 1960 election to Kennedy) got to be aboard the recovery vessel and was the one to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth.. (And on another interesting note. . John McCain was a prisoner in the Hanoi Hotel on this day). Upon return to Earth, the astronauts were kept in strict quarantine for three weeks until doctors had ascertained that they had not somehow picked up some sort of deadly pathogen on the lunar surface. An estimated 600 million people watched the moon landing that historic day . .do you remember where you were?