It seems like an entirely different world today. So much conflict and adversity and war. July 20th, 1969 also had it's share of world problems yet a single event managed to make people stop and marvel. Of course I'm talking of the day that three astronauts from the United States made history. Apollo 11 had travelled a quarter of a million miles to the moon. Michael Collins orbited in the Apollo 11 Command Module monitoring and maintaining the vital communications link with Earth while Mission Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin descended, touching down on the moon's surface at 8:17 PM Greenwich Mean Time (4:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time). The whole world held its breath until Armstrong announced that they had arrived safely. The words "the Eagle has landed" have become part of our lexicon.
Unfortunately to this day, some people don't believe that the Apollo 11 mission really happened. This is despite the hundreds of kilos of moon soil and rocks which we now have (and could not duplicate), despite the conclusive photographic evidence and despite the laser reflecters left behind by the Apollo astronauts to allow researchers to measure the moon's distance to a fraction of an inch.
Don't doubt about it for a moment. We went there and we'll be going back.
Phot Credit: NASA
Comments