by CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – The cosmos is providing a full moon for the 55th anniversary of the first moon landing this weekend, with plenty of other events in its honor Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrinand leaped a giant.
The 94-year-old Aldrin, the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew, led a gala at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on Saturday night. He will be joined by astronaut Charlie Duke, who was the voice inside Mission Control for the July 20, 1969 moon landing.
Museum President Jim Kidrick couldn’t resist throwing a bash “55 years to the day on one of the most historic moments not only in American history, but in the history of the world.”
Can’t make it to San Diego, Cape Canaveral or Houston? There are plenty of other ways to celebrate the moon landing, including the new movie “Fly Me to the Moon,” a lighthearted retrospective with Scarlett Johansson.
And you can explore all things Apollo 11 on a special website at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
If nothing else, move in the full moon Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Here’s a rundown of some tributes to Apollo 11:
‘The eagle has landed’
The Moon Festival is held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at its tourist stop, just a few miles from where Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins’ Saturn V rocket landed on July 16, 1969. Houston’s Johnson Space Center, home to Mission Control , there. also getting in on the action. Four days after leaving Earth, Armstrong and Aldrin, in their lunar module, Eagle, settled into the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 Eastern with barely any fuel left. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed from 240,000 miles (386,000 kilometers) away. “No moment agreed with the country as when the Eagle landed, as the whole Earth looked from below,” said NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, on Friday in a commemorative message.
‘One small step’
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong declared as he became the first man to walk on the moon. Saturday begins with a pair of “Run to the Moon” races followed by model rocket launches and wind tunnel demonstrations. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, came from New Concord on the other side of the state, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) away. The John and Annie Glenn Museum will be open there on Saturday for your astronaut fix.
‘Super early’
Aldrin followed Armstrong outside on the moon, saying “Great destruction.” They spent a little more than two hours walking on the dusty surface, before returning to their lunar module and blasting off to reconnect with Collins, the command module pilot who remained in lunar orbit. Armstrong’s spacesuit for the moon was restored in time for the 50th anniversary in 2019. It is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, along with its return capsule. Aldrin and Collins’ space suit from Apollo 11 is part of the Smithsonian collection and is currently in storage. Collins died in 2021, less than a year after the 50th anniversary; Armstrong died in 2012.
Splashdown!
The capsule carrying Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins – known as Columbia – splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969. They were recovered by the USS Hornet, a Navy aircraft carrier that repeated the job for Apollo 12 four months later. that. The Hornet is now part of a museum in Alameda, California, with a splash party planned on board the ship on Saturday. Some of the original recovery team will be there. The Apollo 11 astronauts were immediately quarantined aboard the Hornet and, along with 48 pounds (22 kilograms) of moon rocks and soil, remained indefinitely for weeks as they were transferred to Houston. Scientists feared that the astronauts might bring back lunar germs. Most of the rocks are still locked inside a containment laboratory at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The Apollo 12 program landed astronauts on the moon from 1969 to 1972.
Next up: Apollo Twins
NASA aims to send four astronauts around the moon next year – as part of a new lunar program named Artemis after the twin sisters of Apollo in Greek mythology. The SLS rocket for that flight – short for Space Launch System – is due at Kennedy Space Center next week. It is arriving on a barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. This core stage will receive a pair of strap-on boosters at Kennedy before blasting off in September 2025 – at the earliest – with three US astronauts and one Canadian. None of them will land on the moon; will arrive on a follow-up mission with another crew no earlier than 2026.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Section is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science and Media Education Group. The AP is solely responsible for all matters.
