Apollo 50: Litterbugs

Fifty years ago today, at 13:32 UTC, Apollo 11 launched on its mission to drop off the first humans to set foot on the Moon. It’s something that hasn’t been achieved again since the Apollo program ended, although interest in going back to the Moon has been rekindled somewhat of late. While we remember it as one of the crowning moments of the 20th century, it’s worth noting that the Apollo program wasn’t without its critics. In an interview in 1961, Norbert Wiener, a professor and legendary mathematician at MIT, dismissed the Apollo program as a “moondoggle”!

I imagine the Apollo 11 astronauts had plenty to do while they were hurtling towards the Moon, but from a bystander’s perspective it was probably pretty dull stuff. Still, it’s Day 3 of the mission, so let’s have a look at what they’ve got stashed away in their space age picnic basket.

The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.

On 20th July 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin had to attempt something no one had done before – landing on the lunar surface. They were in orbit some 50,000 feet above the Moon, traveling at several thousand miles per hour, and had to pilot the lunar module Eagle down to the Moon. The entire process, which was little more than a controlled fall, would take just 12 minutes.

After safely landing on the Sea of Tranquility on the evening of 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had bacon for breakfast before heading out onto the Moon in the early hours of 21st July. (Note that, unlike the Command Module, the Lunar Module (Eagle) only had cold water supplies.) It was Neil Armstrong, of course, who nipped out of first, saying his immortal line as he stepped onto the surface.

Fifty years ago, Apollo 11 was hurtling along on its mission to deposit two white guys on the Moon. By the time the Apollo program was wound down, 12 people had walked on the Moon, and 24 had been in orbit around the Moon. (Only 6 got to drive a lunar rover.) They were all white guys. Since then, no one has been further than a Low Earth Orbit.

On 24th July 1969, at 16:50 UTC, Apollo 11 splashed down in the north Pacific, about 900 miles south west of Hawaii.

Hurrah! Fifty years ago today, the Apollo 11 mission arrived in orbit around the Moon.

When it landed on the Moon, the Eagle lunar lander bore a plaque inscribed with the message “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” But Armstrong and Aldrin planted an American flag on the Moon. Initially it was thought that a United Nations flag would be better, because it wouldn’t imply that the US was claiming possession of the Moon – the United Nations Treaty on Outer Space prevents any territorial claims. So the flag-raising was strictly a symbolic activity, but Congress amended NASA’s appropriations bill to prevent astronauts from placing flags of other nations, or those of international associations, on the Moon during missions funded solely by the United States.

NASA’s Apollo 15 mission launched to the Moon on 26 July 1971 and returned safely to Earth on 7 August. Carrying astronauts David R. Scott, Alfred M. Worden and James B. Irwin, it was the ninth crewed mission in the Apollo program. It was the first of the “J missions”, which aimed to carry out an “Extensive scientific investigation of Moon on lunar surface and from lunar orbit.” It was also the first mission to use a lunar rover.

Header image: The Artemis II crew in an Orion simulator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA/James Blair

Following NASA tradition, one of the tasks for the Apollo 11 crew – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins – was designing the patch for their mission. The astronauts chose not to include their names: