Apollo 11 Moon Landing: 50 Years Later
On 20 July 1969, millions across the globe watched a small space capsule – containing commander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins – land on the surface of the moon, solidifying a significant moment in human history.
Armstrong stepped onto the surface six hours after landing, uttering the now legendary phrase: “One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Fifty years have passed since that awe-inspiring night, and the people of the nearby pale blue dot known as “Earth” have not forgotten the Apollo 11 landing.
The achievement lead to advancements in many scientific disciplines, but it also overshadowed the problems facing America at the time: the conflict in Vietnam, and the civil rights movement, to name a few.
Since then, only a handful of NASA astronauts have made return trips to the moon, and Aldrin has bemoaned “50 years of non-progress”, and that “we can’t do better than [the handful of moon landings]”.
NASA and other space agencies have since set their sights on Mars; the US has set 2024 as a date for the first landing, with a sustainable colony planned for 2028.
