The Editors of LIFE - LIFE The Moon Landing: 50 Years Later

The Moon Landing

Mankinds Greatest Adventure

The view of earth from Apollo 11, July 20, 1969.

The Moon Landing

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart

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WRITER Steve Rushin

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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman

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e-ISBN: 978-1-54784-728-0

Copyright 2019 Meredith Corporation

Published by LIFE Books, an imprint of Meredith Corporation 225 Liberty Street New York, NY 10281

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Vol. 19, No. 16 June 21, 2019

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CONTENTS

Edwin Buzz Aldrin on the Sea of Tranquility, July 1969.

The End of the Impossible

On July 20, 1969, humankinds collective perspective changed forever

BY STEVE RUSHIN

FASCINATION WITH THE MOON IS as old as human civilization, captured in lore and scripture, art and film. An iconic image from the 1902 silent film A Trip to the Moon

When Neil Armstrong emerged from the lunar landing module Eagle on July 21, 1969, the moons gray-scale landscape was reflected in the gold-tinted visor of his helmet, which resembled the curved glass fronts of the television screens through which half a billion peopleone sixth of the earths populationwitnessed the completion of Apollo 11 s journey from Cape Kennedy to the Sea of Tranquility. From the earth to the moon.

The sun was setting low in the lunar sky at 10:56 p.m. Eastern Daylight Timethe newspapers said the five-foot-11 Armstrong would cast a 35-foot shadowand as he descended the nine-rung ladder of the Eagle, he held on to its side rails. When his oversize left moon boot made its impression on the desolate surface, the moon dust was as fine as talcum. Like powdered charcoal, Armstrong would say of the footprint left by the footstep that was the most watched event in human history.

But what was under that powdered charcoal? I was worried that the moon might be too soft and that he might sink in too deeply, said Viola Armstrong, his mother, who was watching at home in Wapakoneta, Ohio, where as a teenager her boy gazed into the night sky and dreamed of flight. On the moon, however, her son weighed one sixth of his earthly 165 pounds, and he didnt disappear into a porous surfacethus instantly dispelling ancient myths that the moon was made of something else, like green cheese.

Thats one small step for man, Armstrong said. One giant leap for mankind. What he intended to say, of course, was: Thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. But the indefinite article a was dropped, leaving a redundant phrase that instantly entered the lexicon anyway.

Shakespeare portrayed the moon as unfaithful and sinister. He called the waxing and waning moon an arrant thief, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon. It is she who makes men mad, the Bard wrote, but the world was moonstruck long before Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Lunacy and lunatic and lunar all derive from the same root, the name Luna, the ancient Roman goddess of the moon. From werewolves to legends of the man in the moon, this pale orbgoverness of tides, mythical synchronizer of menstrual cycleshas always been a source of mystery, fascination, and dread.

Jules Verne, in his 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon, wrote about three men flying to the moon in a small capsule: In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe... we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars with the same facility, and rapidity, and certainty as now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York. And Frank Sinatra expressed this universal longing in a song played by the Apollo 10 astronauts during their 1968 dress rehearsal to lunar landing: Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.

The moon made bards of the unlikeliest poets. You didnt have to be Cole Porter (a trip to the moon on gossamer wings) for the moon to be your muse. Stepping onto its surface 19 minutes after Armstrong didwith Michael Collins orbiting the moon alone in the command module Columbia, awaiting rendezvous with the Eagle Buzz Aldrin marveled out loud at the magnificent desolation of the lunar landscape. And another enduring phrase was minted.