One giant leap for mankind
All photos, unless stated: NASA
Seconds after the Saturn V’s rockets ignited on the morning of July 16, a fisheye camera lens mounted on the launch tower captured the massive rocket passing by.
Aldrin carries the Lunar Ranging Retro-Reflector in his right hand and the seismometer in his left. He skirts the edge of a small crater as he heads south from Eagle toward the deployment sites for the two experiments.
The Apollo 11 astronauts greet their wives — Pat Collins, Jan Armstrong, and Joan Aldrin (left to right) — from inside the Mobile Quarantine Facility after they arrived at Ellington Air Force base in Texas on July 27.
The loneliest man in the universe, Michael Collins, kept busy photographing the Moon’s surface while in orbit. Here, he captured the large crater Daedalus, which lies on the Moon’s farside just south of the point precisely opposite the center of the lunar disk we see from Earth.
Earth grows smaller and smaller as the astronauts cruise toward the Moon. The continent of Africa dominates this view of their home world.
Armstrong photographed the fully deployed Lunar Ranging Retro-Reflector, which still reflects laser signals sent from Earth, to help give a precise distance to our satellite.
A photographer on an Air Force EC-135N plane captured Apollo 11 rising into the clear blue sky above Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s east coast.
After his historic walk on the Moon, Armstrong relaxes with his helmet off back inside Eagle.
As the astronauts headed back to Earth, they captured a few final shots of their recent home. Circular Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises), which lies near the Moon’s eastern limb when viewed from Earth, appears just left
of center.
Aldrin sits inside the LM as he and Armstrong perform their initial inspection of the vehicle that will ferry them to the Moon’s surface.
The astronauts left behind the LM’s descent stage, which includes this plaque. It reads: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, a.d. We came in peace for all mankind.” It carries the signatures of the three Apollo 11 astronauts and President Nixon.
Aldrin works to get the seismometer up and running. He has already deployed one of the experiment’s two solar arrays and will soon finish the second one. The Apollo 11 seismometer sent three weeks’ worth of data to Earth and gave scientists their first look at lunar seismology.
Armstrong waves to well-wishers as he and Collins (Aldrin is hidden behind) make their way to the van that will take them to the Saturn V launch vehicle on July 16.
The command module, Columbia, poses for the astronauts on Eagle while the two craft continue to orbit the Moon. The lunar surface below lies in the northern part of Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fertility).
Armstrong took the eight photos in this panorama
near the end of the astronauts’ surface activities. Little West Crater dominates the right foreground, while the LM stands 200 feet (60 m) away.
The 363-foot-tall (111 m) Saturn V rocket inches its way — at 1 mph (1.6 km/h) — along the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launchpad 39A on May 20, 1969.
About 30 minutes after firing the third-stage rocket and beginning their journey toward the Moon, the astronauts set about docking the command and lunar modules. This view shows the top of the LM as the two craft approach each other.
The Eagle’s descent stage dominates this view. Aldrin took this image as he was wrapping up a multiphoto panoramic image of the landing site.
Armstrong took this photo showing the lunar module beside a lineup of (from right to left) the seismometer, reflector, flag, and TV camera.
Armstrong captured the Moon’s rocky surface during his first sequence of photos after stepping onto the surface. Rocks scatter across the foreground, and a split boulder appears near the frame’s right edge.
For the next four photos, Aldrin descends the Eagle’s ladder on his way to becoming the second man to stand on the Moon’s surface. As Aldrin stood on the footpad, Armstrong said, “Magnificent sight out here,” to which Aldrin replied, “Magnificent desolation.”
Aldrin took this photo of his boot and a partial bootprint as he tests the mechanics of the lunar soil. The rock in front of his toe measures 2 inches (5 cm) across.
Armstrong took most of the photos on the lunar surface, so there are few good shots showing the first man on the Moon. Here, Aldrin captures Armstrong storing some rocks on the LM with the flag and Solar Wind Collector nearby.
Aldrin deploys the Solar Wind Collector. He angles the foil sheet toward the Sun so it can capture the charged solar particles. After being exposed for a little more than an hour, Aldrin rolled it up to bring it back to Earth for analysis.
Earth rises above Mare Smythii, which lies near the Moon’s eastern limb when viewed from our planet. The next six photos in this sequence span about 90 seconds.
Aldrin took the 11 photos in this panorama from the rim of Double Crater, a pair of overlapping impact features that lay just beneath Armstrong’s LM window.
A key activity during the moonwalk was collecting two core samples to allow scientists to study rocks beneath the surface. Here, Aldrin works on the first sample (the larger Solar Wind Collector stands just behind); he was able to drive this one only 8 inches (20 cm) deep.
After separation of the command and lunar modules while in lunar orbit, Collins took this photo of Eagle in its landing configuration. The rodlike probes dangling from the footpads were designed to sense when the craft touches the surface and tell Armstrong and Aldrin to shut off the descent engine.
