This week, the world will celebrate once more that “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” that echoed back to earth on July 20, 1969 (July 21, 1969 Manila time) after four days, six hours and 45 minutes travel from Earth.
The Apollo 11 mission crewed by three astronauts – commander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins – holds the record for the highest velocity reached by a crewed spacecraft at 24,791 miles or 39,897.247 kms per hour.
Armstrong was quoted as referring to the achievement as he made the first steps, written into history books for generations, as “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
But he insisted he actually said “one small step for a man,” and annotated the American Philosophical Society’s copy of the transcript accordingly.
Armstrong became the first person to step on the Moon’s near-black, powdery surface as an estimated 600 million people, including some from the Philippines, back on Earth watched the historic moment live on television.
This 2023 marks the 54th anniversary of the Apollo landing, which fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s ambitious goal, set in 1961, to land a crewed spacecraft on the Moon and return to Earth.
Apollo 11 achieved this feat in just over eight days, traveling a total 953,054 miles or 1,533,791.74 kms.
The journey—and live audio and video transmission, courtesy of a custom low-light camera from Westinghouse Electric’s Aerospace Division—was an astounding technological achievement.
But the scientific results and specimens from Armstrong and Aldrin’s 21-hour-and-36-minute stay on the Moon produced invaluable data and fueled research long after the mission was over.
Many have said that while the mission was completed 50 years ago, it is still bearing fruit and has given man “a far better understanding of the origins of the solar system.”
Space analysts have said the observations and material collected by the Apollo 11 crew led to exciting discoveries: analysis of the chemical composition of lunar rocks helped strengthen the theory that the Moon was actually a chip off the young Earth.
Researchers think that soon after the formation of the solar system, Earth was struck by a Mars-sized object, intimately mixing the two bodies.
Some of the resulting vapor and rock later congealed into the single satellite that is our Moon today.
Analysts say this origin story would explain why the Moon doesn’t have a large iron core and is mostly composed of materials found in Earth’s crust, and why the ratios of many isotopes on the Moon’s surface are identical to those found in rocks on Earth.
One of the instruments left on the Moon’s surface—the Laser Ranging Retroreflector—allowed scientists to collect data for decades after Apollo 11’s return to Earth.
Findings include that the Moon is moving farther away from Earth and that the universal force of gravity is stable.