home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Kids Cube
/
4_History.iso
/
jubilee
/
aland.dat
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-03-05
|
2KB
|
41 lines
The Command Module name for the Apollo 11 mission was
'Columbia' and the Lunar Module landing craft was called
'Eagle'. Mike Collins, the Command Module pilot reflected
on the name,'Columbia':
"Columbia did have a lot of things going for it...
the lyrics for 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean' kept
popping into my mind and they argued well for the
recovery of a spacecraft which hopefully would
float on the ocean..."
The crew of Apollo 11 were Neil Armstrong,Mike Collins,
and Buzz Aldrin.
They traveled to a destination 240000 miles from Earth.
The Saturn 5 rocket propelled the astronauts at speeds up
to 25,000 miles per hour.Once in orbit around the moon the
lunar module (LM) detached from the command module, and the
mission commander and the module pilot guided it down to
the moon.The landing was the most difficult and dangerous
part of the mission because there was only so much fuel and no
second chances. Neil Armstrong abruptly detoured the Apollo
lunar module Eagle around the designated landing site on
the Sea of Tranquility. The area was covered with car-size
boulders, so the test pilot gambled his fuel to find a less
hazardous location for the touch down. By then, calculations
for the landing had overloaded both flight computers on the
Eagle.
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with the
words "A small step for Man, a leap for Mankind". The
second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, described "magnificent
desolation". These events were watched by an Earth
television audience of 90 million people.
Touchdown at the Sea of Tranquility 4:10 pm EDT Sunday
July 20,1969
Man Steps on the Moon 10:56 pm EDT Sunday
July 20,1969.