"That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

Space was last among a list of topics that included the creeping tide of communism, military alliances, civil defense and disarmament. But space was not least in JFK’s list of urgent American needs. The space race, he said, was an extension of the battle being waged on Earth between freedom and tyranny.

Kennedy mentioned the head start Soviet Russia had with large thrust rockets and the first satellite in space, Sputnik, in 1957. The United States had the resources and talent, he said, "But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.”

“but,” he added, “ this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.”

Later in the speech he said, “no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space,” but in the four space race goals he set before Congress and the world on that day in May, Kennedy made it clear that no matter what the meaning of space exploration, America should lead the way.

Kennedy asked for an extra $155 million dollars for various aspects of the space program, including a satellite system for world-wide weather observation. But the first and foremost goal was this:

“First, 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. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

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The voyage began at 9:32 a.m. EDT, July 16, when a Saturn V rocket launched Apollo 11 into Earth orbit from Cape Kennedy. After one and a half orbits of the Earth, the third stage of the Saturn V refired to send Apollo on its outward journey to the Moon.

Shortly afterward, the command/service module, called Columbia, separated from the Saturn third stage, turned around, and connected nose to nose with the lunar module, called Eagle, which had been stored in the third stage. With Eagle attached to its nose, Columbia drew away from the third stage and continued toward the Moon.

On July 19, Apollo 11 neared and went behind the Moon. At 1:28 p.m. EDT, it fired its service module rocket to go into lunar orbit. After 24 hours in lunar orbit Armstrong and Aldrin separated Eagle from Columbia, to prepare for descent to the lunar surface. On July 20 at 4:18 p.m. EDT, the Lunar Module touched down on the Moon at Tranquility Base. Armstrong reported "The Eagle Has Landed."

And at 10:56 p.m., Armstrong, descending from Eagle's ladder and touching one foot to the Moon's surface, announced: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Apollo 11 crew

Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin: Born Jan. 20, 1930, in Montclair, New Jersey. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, entered the United States Air Force, and received pilot training in 1951. Aldrin flew sixty-six combat missions in F-86s in Korea. Aldrin became an astronaut during the selection of the third group by NASA in October 1963. On Nov. 11, 1966 he orbited aboard the Gemini XII spacecraft, a 4-day 59-revolution flight that successfully ended the Gemini program. Aldrin was chosen as a member of the three-person Apollo 11 crew that landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969. In 1971 Aldrin returned to the Air Force and retired a year later. He wrote two important books about his activities in the U.S. space program – Return to Earth (1970), recounting the flight of Apollo 11, and Men from Earth (1989), in which he examined the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. He has been a space program analyst since the 1960s. He lives near Los Angeles, California. Buzzaldrin.com

Neil Alden Armstrong: Born Aug. 5 1930 on his grandparents' farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio. Fascinated by aviation from an early age, he had his he had his student pilot's license at 16, before he even passed his automobile driver's test. Immediately after high school Armstrong received a scholarship from the U.S. Navy. He enrolled at Purdue University and began his studies of aeronautical engineering. In 1949, the Navy called him to active duty, where he became an aviator, and in 1950, he was sent to Korea. There he flew seventy-eight combat missions from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Essex. In 1952 Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). For the next 17 years, he was an engineer, test pilot, astronaut, and administrator for the NACA and its successor agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). At Edwards Air Force Base in California as an aeronautical research scientist and pilot, he flew more than 200 different models of aircraft, including jets, rockets, helicopters, gliders and the 4,000-mph X-15.Armstrong transferred to astronaut status in 1962, one of nine NASA astronauts in the second class to be chosen. On 16 March 1966, Armstrong flew his first space mission as command pilot of Gemini VIII with David Scott. During that mission Armstrong piloted the Gemini VIII spacecraft to a successful docking with an Agena target spacecraft already in orbit. While the docking went smoothly and the two craft orbited together, they began to pitch and roll wildly. Armstrong was able to undock the Gemini and used the retro rockets to regain control of his craft, but the astronauts had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean. As spacecraft commander for Apollo 11, the first piloted lunar landing mission, Armstrong gained the distinction of being the first person to step on the surface of the Moon. Armstrong subsequently held the position of Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s. After resigning from NASA in 1971, he became a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati from 1971 to 1979. During the years 1982-1992, Armstrong served as chairman of Computing Technologies for Aviation, Inc., in Charlottesville, Virginia. He then became chairman of the board of AIL Systems, Inc., an electronics systems company in Deer Park, New York. Today Armstrong lives on his farm in Lebanon, Ohio.

Michael Collins: Born Oct. 30, 1930, in Rome, Italy. He later moved to Washington, D.C., where he graduated from St. Albans School. In 1952, he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and received his bachelor of science degree. Before joining NASA, Collins served as a fighter pilot and an experimental test pilot at the Air Force Flight Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. In October 1963, Michael Collins became one of the third group of astronauts named by NASA. He served as a pilot on the three-day Gemini X mission, launched July 18, 1966. During this mission, he set a world altitude record and became the nation’s third spacewalker while completing two extravehicular activities. His second flight was as Command Module pilot of the historic Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. He remained in lunar orbit while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the Moon. His role in the Apollo mission earned him many awards and accolades, including the Presidential Medal for Freedom in 1969. In January 1970, Collins left NASA to become the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later he joined the Smithsonian Institution as the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, where he remained for seven years. In April 1978, Collins became Under Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he became the Vice President of the LTV Aerospace and Defense Company, resigning in 1985 to start his own firm. He has written about his experiences in the space program in several books, including Carrying the Fire and Flying to the Moon and other Strange Places. In 1988, he wrote Liftoff: the Story of America’s Adventure in Space. Today he is an aerospace consultant and writer.

Top Ten Scientific Discoveries Made During Apollo Exploration of the Moon

1. The Moon is not a primordial object; it is an evolved terrestrial planet with internal zoning similar to that of Earth.

Before Apollo, the state of the Moon was a subject of almost unlimited speculation. We now know that the Moon is made of rocky material that has been variously melted, erupted through volcanoes, and crushed by meteorite impacts. The Moon possesses a thick crust (60 km), a fairly uniform lithosphere (60-1000 km), and a partly liquid asthenosphere (1000-1740 km); a small iron core at the bottom of the asthenosphere is possible, but unconfirmed. Some rocks give hints of ancient magnetic fields although no planetary field exists today.

2. The Moon is ancient and still preserves an early history (the first billion years) that must be common to all terrestrial planets.

The extensive record of meteorite craters on the Moon, when calibrated using absolute ages of rock samples, provides a key for unraveling time scales for the geologic evolution of Mercury, Venus, and Mars based on their individual crater records. Photogeologic interpretation of other planets is based largely on lessons learned from the Moon. Before Apollo, however, the origin of lunar impact craters was not fully understood and the origin of similar craters on Earth was highly debated.

3. The youngest Moon rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth rocks. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both planetary bodies can now only be found on the Moon.

Moon rock ages range from about 3.2 billion years in the maria (dark, low basins) to nearly 4.6 billion years in the terrae (light, rugged highlands). Active geologic forces, including plate tectonics and erosion, continuously repave the oldest surfaces on Earth whereas old surfaces persist with little disturbance on the Moon.

4. The Moon and Earth are genetically related and formed from different proportions of a common reservoir of materials.

The distinctively similar oxygen isotopic compositions of Moon rocks and Earth rocks clearly show common ancestry. Relative to Earth, however, the Moon was highly depleted in iron and in volatile elements that are needed to form atmospheric gases and water. 5. The Moon is lifeless; it contains no living organisms, fossils, or native organic compounds.

Extensive testing revealed no evidence of life, past or present, among the lunar samples. Even non-biological organic compounds are amazingly absent; traces can be attributed to contamination by meteorites.

6. All Moon rocks originated through high-temperature processes with little or no involvement with water. They are roughly divisible into three types: basalts, anorthosites, and breccias.

Basalts are dark lava rocks that fill mare basins; they generally resemble, but are much older than, lavas that comprise the oceanic crust of Earth. Anorthosites are light rocks that form the ancient highlands; they generally resemble, but are much older than, the most ancient rocks on Earth. Breccias are composite rocks formed from all other rock types through crushing, mixing, and sintering during meteorite impacts. The Moon has no sandstones, shales or limestones, testifying to the importance of water-borne processes on Earth.

7. Early in its history, the Moon was melted to great depths to form a "magma ocean." The lunar highlands contain the remnants of early, low-density rocks that floated to the surface of the magma ocean.

The lunar highlands were formed about 4.4-4.6 billion years ago by flotation of an early, feldspar-rich crust on a magma ocean that covered the Moon to a depth of many tens of kilometers or more. Innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time reduced much of the ancient crust to arcuate mountain ranges between basins.

8. The lunar magma ocean was followed by a series of huge asteroid impacts that created basins which were later filled by lava flows.

The large, dark basins such as Mare Imbrium are gigantic impact craters, formed early in lunar history, that were later filled by lava flows about 3.2-3.9 billion years ago. Lunar volcanism occurred mostly as lava floods that spread horizontally; volcanic fire fountains produced deposits of orange and emerald-green glass beads.

9. The Moon is slightly asymmetrical in bulk form, possibly as a consequence of its evolution under Earth's gravitational influence. Its crust is thicker on the far side, while most volcanic basins – and unusual mass concentrations – occur on the near side.

Mass is not distributed uniformly inside the Moon. Large mass concentrations ("mascons") lie beneath the surface of many large lunar basins and probably represent thick accumulations of dense lava. Relative to its geometric center, the Moon's center of mass is displaced toward Earth by several kilometers.

10. The surface of the Moon is covered by a rubble pile of rock fragments and dust, called the lunar regolith, that contains a unique radiation history of the Sun, which is of importance to understanding climate changes on Earth.

The regolith was produced by innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time. Surface rocks and mineral grains are distinctively enriched in chemical elements and isotopes implanted by solar radiation. As such, the Moon has recorded four billion years of the Sun's history to a degree of completeness that we are unlikely to find elsewhere.