50th Anniversary of the First Moonwalk
On July 20, 1969, the world watched as Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of the Eagle and stepped outside onto a barren lunar landscape. Buzz Aldrin followed him out the door and they became the first humans to ever walk on the moon. All the while, their third crewmate, Michael Collins, sat in a lonely orbit around moon in the Columbia command module.
The three Apollo 11 astronauts launched toward the moon on July 16, 1969, and returned heroes in a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. Only 10 more people would ever put their boots on powdery moon dirt (said to smell like gunpowder), and no humans have returned since Apollo 17 blasted off the lunar surface on December 14, 1972.
July 20, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the first moonwalk. NASA has planned a slew of events to reflect on the historic landing and look ahead to the future of space exploration.
