Apollo 11′s Landing Was 47 Years Ago Today

Apollo 11′s Landing was 47 Years Ago Today

“The eight day excursion was the beginning of humanity’s journey beyond our home world. Although we have yet to go farther under our own power than we did in the heyday of the Apollo program, our technology, science, dreams and ambition have only continued to grow. If we put the resources into it, human exploration of Mars, of Jovian and Saturnian satellites, or even of worlds beyond our Solar System might become a reality by the end of the 21st century. On the anniversary of the Apollo landings, it’s up to us to remember: it’s our Universe, too, and it’s up to us to make sure we extend our reach beyond the planet we were born onto.”

Less than a decade after the first human was launched into space, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins journeyed from the Earth to the Moon. For the first time, human beings descended down to the lunar surface, opened the hatch, and walked outside. Humanity had departed Earth and set foot onto another world. While Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface, collecting now-iconic photos, deploying science instruments and returning hundreds of pounds of lunar samples, Michael Collins orbited overhead, embarking on a missing that no human being had undertaken before. Forty-seven years later, humanity has never had a bigger breakthrough as far as crewed space exploration goes.