16.7. 1969 Apollo 11 heading for the Moon

On July 16, 1969, at precisely 4.32 p.m., the Apollo 11 crew launched on a historic journey to the Moon. The first to touch the lunar surface was Neil Amstrong.

On January 9, 1696, NASA officially announced that the Apollo 11 crew would consist of Commander Neil Amstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Aldrin. Two days before the actual launch on July 14, a large crowd gathered near Cape Kennedy to watch the final preparations for the first human landing on the Moon.

The Apollo 11 spacecraft blasted off from the space centre at Cape Canaveral, California, at 4.32pm on 16 July 1969. "This culminates the race to the moon that President John Kennedy announced in May 1961 - in response to the shock to Americans of Yuri Gagarin's first flight. Man's journey to the moon and his safe return was to become a reality by the end of the decade," writes Alena Breuer in My Year 1969.

On Christmas 1968, Apollo 8 circles the moon as its crew reads from the book of Genesis. Half a year later, her goal is within reach. The commander of Apollo 11 is the aforementioned Neil Amstrong, who is also to become the first man whose foot touches the moon because he is a civilian. Colonel Aldrin, pilot of the lunar module, is furious and tries in vain to reverse the decision of his superiors. The command module pilot, Collins, will never make it to the moon. He remains in orbit.

The astronauts spent just over 21 hours on the lunar surface. Their first moonwalk lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. The first man to touch the lunar surface was indeed Amstrong, who uttered the memorable phrase, "It is a small step for man and a great leap for mankind," as he exited the lunar module.

President J.F. Kennedy's prediction thus came true, while the Soviets were not yet ready for a similar manned mission and later began to back away from the idea of sending a crew to the Moon. The American Apollo lunar programme, launched in 1967, was a triumphant success and became a priority for NASA for the next five years.

However, in late 1972, the programme was abruptly ended with the last manned Apollo 17 mission. "The official reason why Americans stopped going to the moon in the first place was that the lunarThe Apollo project cost a total of $24 million and was already too expensive for the US," explains Vladimir Liska in his book Yuri Gagarin: The Secret Truth.

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