CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The cosmos is providing a full moon for the 55th anniversary of the first lunar landing this weekend, and many other events in honor Neil Armstrong It is Buzz AldrinIt’s a giant leap.
Aldrin, 94, the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew, is the headliner at a gala at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on Saturday night. He will be joined by astronaut Charlie Duke, who was the voice inside Mission Control for the moon landing on July 20, 1969.
The museum’s president, Jim Kidrick, couldn’t resist throwing a party “55 years to the day of one of the most historic moments not just in the history of America, but in the history of the world.”
Can’t make it to San Diego, Cape Canaveral or Houston? There are many other ways to celebrate the moon landing, including the new movie “Make me fly to the moon,” a feel-good retrospective starring Scarlett Johansson.
And you can explore all things Apollo 11 in a special website by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
At the very least, take advantage of the full moon from Saturday night until Sunday morning.
Here is a summary of some Apollo 11 tributes:
‘The Eagle has landed’
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is holding a moon festival at its tourist stop, just a few miles from where the Saturn V rocket rocketed Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins on July 16, 1969. Houston’s Johnson Space Center, headquarters of Control of the Mission, is also taking action. Four days after leaving Earth, Armstrong and Aldrin, in their lunar module, Eagle, settled in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 p.m. Eastern time with almost no fuel left. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” Armstrong said via radio from 240,000 miles away. “No moment brought the country together like when the Eagle landed, while all of planet Earth watched from below,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Friday in an anniversary message.
‘One small step’
“That’s it one small step for man, a giant leap for humanity,” Armstrong proclaimed upon becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. Armstrong grew up in Wapakoneta, in northwestern Ohio, now home to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. The museum’s Saturday tribute begins with two “Run to the Moon” races. followed by model rocket launches and wind tunnel demonstrations. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, came from New Concord, on the opposite side of the state, about 150 miles away. The John and Annie Glenn Museum will be open there on Saturday for your astronaut fix.
‘Magnificent desolation’
Aldrin followed Armstrong off the moon, uttering “Magnificent desolation.” They spent just over two hours treading the dusty surface, before returning to the lunar module and taking off to connect with Collins, the command module pilot who remained in lunar orbit. Armstrong’s spacesuit for the trip to the Moon was restored in time for the 50th anniversary in 2019. It is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, along with its return capsule. Aldrin and Collins’ spacesuits from Apollo 11 are also part of the Smithsonian collection and are currently in storage. Collins died in 2021less than a year after the 50th birthday; Armstrong died in 2012.
Splash!
The capsule containing Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins – nicknamed Columbia – crashed in the Pacific on July 24, 1969. They were recovered by the USS Hornet, a Navy aircraft carrier that repeated the work for Apollo 12 four months later. The Hornet is now part of a museum in Alameda, California, with a party planned aboard the ship on Saturday. Some members of the original recovery team will be there. The Apollo 11 astronauts immediately went into quarantine aboard the Hornet and, along with 48 pounds (22 kg) of moon rocks and soil, remained off-limits for weeks while they were transferred to Houston. Scientists feared that astronauts might have brought lunar germs. Most of the rocks remain locked inside a restricted laboratory at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The Apollo program took 12 astronauts to the Moon from 1969 to 1972.
Next: Apollo’s twin
NASA intends to send four astronauts around the moon next year – part of a new moon program called Artemis after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology. The SLS rocket for this flight – short for Space Launch System – will launch from Kennedy Space Center next week. It is arriving by barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. This core stage will receive a pair of boosters at Kennedy before lifting off in September 2025 – at the earliest – with three North American astronauts and one Canadian. None of them will land on the moon; which will come on a follow-up mission with another crew no earlier than 2026.
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