Overview

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong (1930- ) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930- ) landed an ungainly spacecraft named Eagle on the moon and spent two hours exploring the lunar surface. They left the next day, rendezvousing in lunar orbit with the command ship Columbia and returning safely to Earth. The Apollo 11 landing ended a decade of competition between the Soviet and American space programs, helped to restore the nation's self-confidence, and began an intensive program of exploration that transformed scientists' understanding of the Moon.

Background

The dream of traveling to the moon was already centuries old when the Second World War ended in 1945. It had inspired Robert Goddard (1882-1945), who built and flew the first modern rockets in the New Mexico desert during the 1930s, and captivated Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), leader...