Apollo 11

Beginning right after World War II in 1945 the United States of America and the Soviet Union became involved in a competition to prove who was the best. Who was the best at spying? Who had the best scientists? Who had the best technology and the biggest military? No shots were ever fired in this war but they often took opposite sides in helping other countries at war. By the late 1950’s the two countries began a head-to-head battle to see who would be the first country to put a man in space. This began a time in history known as The Space Race. The Soviet Union won the first part of the race by sending Yuri Gagarin into space in a rocket. Then Alexei Leonov was the first man to walk in space. The United States was not to be outdone and doubled its efforts to be the first country to put a man on the moon.

The first American astronaut in space was Alan Shepard on May 5th, 1961. His first space flight lasted 15 minutes. Boy, was it exciting to have a man in space. Less than a month later, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech to a large crowd at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. He wanted to make sure the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was given enough money to get a man on the moon. A lot of people did not think it would ever happen. President Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963 and never got to see it.

In 1969 NASA announced it was ready to put a man on the moon and that it would happen in July. The mission was named Apollo 11. NASA told America that the three astronauts would be Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins. All three men had signed up to be astronauts a long time before this announcement and had gone through years of training.

On July 16th, 1969 the three astronauts boarded Apollo 11 in their space suits. They were about to make history. The command module was on top of a Saturn V rocket. The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It took 4 days to get there. On July 20th the landing module touched down on the surface of the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard. Michael Collins stayed in the command module orbiting the moon waiting to pick them up like an inter-solar system Uber. After a 240,000 mile trip that had been watched by millions of people, American astronauts stepped off the ship and onto the surface of the moon.

The two men spent 21 hours on the moon’s surface taking pictures, exploring, doing science experiments, gathering samples to bring back to Earth and leaving equipment for future experiments. Millions of people around the world watched on television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin put the American flag on the moon, and America won the race against the Soviet Union.