Who was the first man to step on the moon

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a The Apollo 11 mission was, in most respects, a feat of extraordinary precision. Traveling at a maximum velocity of about seven miles a second, the Saturn V rocket would have launched the crew far off course in the event of even a slight navigational error. From nearly 240,000 miles away, Houston’s Mission Control could track the spacecraft’s position to within 30 feet. The command module’s guidance computer kept time to the millisecond. And yet for all that precision, no one can say with absolute certainty when, exactly, Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Most of the details of the moment are canonical: Armstrong took his one small step on July 20, 1969—50 years ago this past Saturday. The step took place just after 10:56 eastern time that night. And Armstrong bookended the step with the lines “Okay, I’m going to step off the [lunar module] now” and “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” (Or was it “ a man,” as Armstrong insisted?) At some point during the roughly eight-second interval between those two lines, he became the first human being to walk on the moon. But when exactly he did so is unclear. The night of the moon landing, NASA told the press that Armstrong had stepped onto the lunar surface at 10:56:20 p.m., and The New York Times reported that same time stamp on its Experts agree that the time NASA fed reporters is probably the least reliable of the bunch. They also don’t put much stock in the...

What if the Soviet hammer and sickle had been the first flag on the Moon, rather than the Stars and Stripes? Roger Highfield, Science Director, talks to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who trained to be the first to walk on the Moon. Sixty years ago, it seemed inevitable that the USSR would be the first to land a human on the Moon. Earlier, on 4 October 1957, the USSR had successfully launched the Replica Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, on display in Exploring Space More firsts quickly followed for the USSR, with Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human in space on 12 April 1961, Valentina Tereshkova before her mission c. Roscosmos Because the USSR lunar lander could only be entered by someone who had undertaken a spacewalk, Leonov became an ideal candidate for this mission. At this time, the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 touched down in July 1969, had even been selected as a potential USSR landing site. Despite the USSR’s isolation from the West, Leonov was well aware of President John F Kennedy’s 1961 speech which launched America’s Apollo Moon programme. Russian fascination with space long predates that of America. In the later years of the 19th century, While newborn NASA first pondered a lunar programme The USSR led the way in lunar exploration with the The first image returned by Luna 3 showing the far side of the Moon. It’s important to note that, in 1964, the Soviet government gave the authorisation—undeclared to the world—to proceed with a Moon missio...

Neil Armstrong steps on to the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969 before uttering one of the world's most famous sentences. Photograph: AP/Press Association Images Neil Armstrong steps on to the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969 before uttering one of the world's most famous sentences. Photograph: AP/Press Association Images Did Armstrong really mean to say "a man" instead of just "man"? When Armstrong returned from space, he claimed he had been misquoted and the tiny word "a" had been omitted from the offical version of the mission transcript. Nasa claimed that the word was unheard and unrecorded in the transmission because of static. The omission of the word changed the meaning of the phrase entirely, taking it beyond a statement from one individual and turning it into a universal statement. News reporters at the time listened again to the raw footage and agreed it was unclear whether Armstrong had actually said "a man" or "man". Realising that it was set to be one of the most important quotes in history, they decided to unanimously settle on one version, which was sent out across the world. However, the New York Times claimed Armstrong's quote could be heard clearly in the recording and concluded that he simply had messed up his line. In the years following the moon landing, Armstrong apparently accepted that he had fluffed the line when presented with a plaque bearing the famous quote. According to the authors of the 1986 book Chariots for Fire, the astronaut tried ...

The world watched on television as Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11 took the first human footsteps on the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969. It was the first time humans walked on another world as he stepped onto the lunar surface, Armstrong said: “That is one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Eagle has landed and footsteps on the moon On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed their moon module on a broad dark lunar lava flow, called the Sea of Tranquility. And six hours later, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the surface of a world beyond Earth. In the video below, you can hear the excitement in Armstrong’s voice at the successful landing of Eagle on the moon’s surface as he says: Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. The first footsteps on the moon leaving human footprints on the moon. Altogether, Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 1/2 hours on the moon’s surface. Furthermore, they collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of moon rocks for return to Earth. And then they blasted off in their module from the lunar surface to meet up with Michael Collins in the command module orbiting overhead. Finally they returned safely to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969. The Apollo 11 launch Apollo 11 launch at 13:32:00 Apollo 11 left Earth via a type of rocket now no longer used, called a Saturn V. The giant Saturn V rocket was 111 meters (363 feet) tall, about the height of a 36-story-tall build...