59 Fun Facts About Apollo 11

On what date did Apollo 11's lunar module land on the Moon?

The lunar module touched down on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, four days after the July 16 launch and four days before the July 24 splashdown.

Which crew member stayed in lunar orbit aboard the command module while the other two landed?

He was the second person to orbit the Moon alone, after John Young on Apollo 10.

What was the call sign of the Apollo 11 lunar module?

Eagle was the lunar module's call sign, taken from the bald eagle on the mission patch; the command module was Columbia.

The command module was named Columbia after Columbiad, a giant cannon in a novel by which author?

Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865) fires its travellers Moonward from the Columbiad, a giant cannon sunk into the ground in Florida.

Which flight director was on console for Apollo 11's lunar landing?

Gene Kranz led the White Team on console for the powered descent and landing; he had the control-room doors locked before it began.

What does the eagle on the Apollo 11 patch carry in its talons?

An olive branch is clutched in the talons; it was first drawn in the beak and moved after Bob Gilruth felt the open talons looked too warlike.

Roughly how many spectators watched Apollo 11 launch from nearby beaches and highways?

One million spectators, by the standard estimate, packed the beaches and highways around Cape Kennedy on launch morning, July 16, 1969.

Which Soviet probe launched three days before Apollo 11 in a bid to return lunar samples first?

Luna 15, launched on July 13, 1969, crashed into Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from the surface.

In which lunar 'sea' did the Apollo 11 lunar module land?

The Sea of Tranquility site had been judged flat and smooth from Ranger 8, Surveyor 5 and Lunar Orbiter photographs.

During the descent, the guidance computer flashed which pair of program alarm codes?

The 1201 and 1202 alarms meant executive overflow: spurious rendezvous-radar data overloaded the computer, which shed low-priority tasks and kept guiding the descent.

Which Mission Control engineer told Steve Bales it was safe to keep descending despite the alarms?

Jack Garman, a backroom computer engineer who kept a handwritten list of alarm codes, told Steve Bales the descent could continue; Margaret Hamilton led the MIT software team.

Armstrong took over as the computer steered toward a boulder field around which crater?

West crater, ringed by large boulders, was where the automatic targeting was taking the lander; Armstrong later likened it to a football field in size and flew past it to smoother ground.

By real-time data, how many seconds of fuel remained when the lunar module landed?

The real-time data gave 25 seconds of fuel left; post-mission analysis put it nearer 50 seconds, with 216 pounds of usable propellant remaining.

Which CAPCOM answered Armstrong's landing call from the surface with the words 'We're breathing again'?

Charlie Duke, the CAPCOM for the landing, was so relieved he stumbled over his reply; he walked on the Moon himself on Apollo 16 in 1972.

For decades Aldrin believed the decision that Armstrong would step out first was driven largely by what?

Where the LM hatch was: it hinged on Aldrin's side and opened inward, leaving the commander nearest the exit; Chris Kraft later revealed managers had met to ensure Armstrong went first.

About how long after landing did Armstrong step onto the surface?

Six and a half hours, roughly: touchdown at 20:17 UTC was followed by the first step at 02:56 UTC on July 21, after the crew skipped a planned rest period.

Armstrong's first words on the Moon are printed with which bracketed word he insisted he said?

The bracketed word is 'A': NASA prints the line as 'That's one small step for (a) man', and Armstrong maintained he said it, though it cannot be heard in the recording.

How many minutes after Armstrong did Aldrin step onto the Moon?

Nineteen minutes after Armstrong's 02:56 UTC first step, Aldrin came down the ladder at 03:15 and summed up the view in two words: magnificent desolation.

The moonwalk was broadcast live to an estimated audience of about how many people?

An estimated 600 million people, roughly a fifth of the world's population, watched live; the clearest pictures came through Honeysuckle Creek and then Parkes in Australia.

The first food and liquid consumed on the Moon were what?

Communion elements: Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder, privately ate a small piece of bread and sipped wine from a kit prepared by his pastor at Webster Presbyterian Church in Texas.

Roughly how far into the hard lunar surface were the astronauts able to push the flagpole?

About 6 inches was as deep as the pole would go into the hard subsurface, so it stood precariously; the telescoping crossbar also jammed short of full extension.

What happened to the American flag when the lunar module's ascent stage lifted off?

It toppled over: Aldrin glimpsed it falling in the ascent-engine exhaust, and later crews planted their flags farther from the lunar module.

From where did Nixon make his 'most historic phone call' to the astronauts on the Moon?

The White House: Nixon spoke from the Oval Office by a radio-telephone link relayed through Houston, after Frank Borman had persuaded him to drop a long prepared speech.

The plaque on the lunar module's ladder ends with which sentence?

'We came in peace for all mankind' closes the text, set beneath two drawings of Earth's hemispheres and the signatures of the three astronauts and President Nixon.

About how much lunar material did Armstrong and Aldrin collect?

The 21.5 kg of basalt, breccia and soil yielded three minerals new to science, including armalcolite, named for the three crew members.

Which Apollo 11 surface experiment remained in scientific use for more than 50 years?

The retroreflector array is a passive panel of corner-cube mirrors; lasers from Earth were being bounced off it in the 2020s, while the seismometer's uplink failed within weeks.

The astronauts' silicon disc left on the Moon carried goodwill messages from how many countries' leaders?

73 countries' leaders are represented on the disc, which is about the size of a 50-cent piece; the messages were etched at 1/200 scale.

The crew left memorial items on the surface, including a mission patch honouring which flight's crew?

Apollo 1's patch, honouring Grissom, White and Chaffee, went into a bag with medals for cosmonauts Gagarin and Komarov, which Aldrin tossed from his sleeve pocket at the end of the moonwalk.

What did the crew use to push in the ascent-engine circuit breaker Aldrin had accidentally broken?

A felt-tip pen, a Duro marker with a nonconductive tip, pushed the broken engine-arm breaker back in and let the ascent engine fire to get them off the Moon.

Which aircraft carrier recovered the Apollo 11 crew after splashdown in the Pacific?

USS Hornet, with President Nixon aboard to greet them, picked up the crew on July 24, 1969, after the landing point was shifted to dodge a storm.

How long were the astronauts kept in quarantine after returning from the Moon?

21 days of quarantine, counted from the lunar liftoff, ended on August 10, 1969; the practice continued for Apollo 12 and 14 before being dropped.

The Apollo 11 command module Columbia is preserved where?

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington received Columbia from NASA in 1971 and has shown it on the National Mall since the museum building opened in 1976.

The August 13, 1969, ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago drew an estimated crowd of how many?

Six million people, by the usual estimate, turned out for the two parades; that evening a state dinner in Los Angeles saw each astronaut receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

At what local time did Apollo 11 lift off on July 16, 1969?

9:32 a.m. EDT, 13:32 UTC, was the moment of liftoff from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, exactly on schedule.

William Safire's speech 'In Event of Moon Disaster' was for Nixon to read if what happened?

The astronauts were stranded up there: the memo covered Armstrong and Aldrin being unable to lift off, after which NASA would cut communications and a clergyman would commend their souls to the deep.

Which spacecraft photographed the Apollo landing sites in 2009 clearly enough to show foot trails?

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in June 2009, returned images that July showing the descent stages and, at some sites, the astronauts' foot trails.

After Armstrong's death, his widow found a white cloth bag in a closet containing what?

The 16mm landing camera that filmed the descent was in the bag with other parts that should have stayed aboard the lunar module; Armstrong died in August 2012.

Neil Armstrong was born and raised near which Ohio town?

Wapakoneta, in Auglaize County, was his birthplace and boyhood home; it opened the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in 1972, and he took flying lessons at its airfield as a teenager.

Armstrong flew the Grumman F9F Panther from the carrier USS Essex in which war?

The Korean War: Armstrong flew 78 missions with VF-51 from USS Essex in 1951-52; the Navy had paid his Purdue tuition, and he later flew the X-15 seven times at Edwards.

On which mission did Armstrong perform the first spacecraft docking before a stuck thruster forced an abort?

Gemini 8, in March 1966, docked with an Agena target vehicle before a stuck thruster forced an early return; it made Armstrong NASA's first civilian in space, with David Scott as pilot.

After leaving NASA in 1971, Armstrong taught aerospace engineering where?

University of Cincinnati, chosen over his alma mater Purdue partly because its aerospace department was small; he taught there from 1971 until 1979.

Buzz Aldrin's nickname came from his little sister mispronouncing which word?

Brother, as said by his younger sister Fay Ann, came out as 'buzzer', which shortened to Buzz; he made it his legal first name in 1988, and Buzz Lightyear was named for him.

What was the maiden name of Buzz Aldrin's mother?

Marion Moon Aldrin lived in Montclair, New Jersey, where her son was later a football state champion.

What nickname did Aldrin's MIT thesis on orbital docking guidance earn him among astronauts?

Dr. Rendezvous was the tag his 1963 MIT doctorate on orbital rendezvous techniques earned him; he was the first astronaut with a doctorate and knew the name was not always meant kindly.

How many MiG-15s did Aldrin shoot down flying F-86 Sabres in Korea?

Two MiG-15s fell to Aldrin in 66 combat missions; the first, on May 14, 1953, near the Yalu River, was caught on gun-camera film that Life magazine published.

Michael Collins lost his Apollo 9 prime-crew seat to backup Jim Lovell after surgery for what condition?

The diagnosis was a cervical disc herniation requiring two vertebrae to be fused; Collins spent three months in a neck brace. The Apollo 8 and 9 crews later swapped places, which is why the seat is often described as Apollo 8's.

Which Gemini mission did Collins fly before Apollo 11?

Gemini 10, flown with John Young in July 1966, included two spacewalks by Collins, one of them to retrieve an experiment package from an Agena target vehicle.

What is the title of Collins's 1974 memoir of his astronaut years?

Carrying the Fire (1974) is Collins's own account of his test-pilot and astronaut years, written without a ghostwriter and with a foreword by Charles Lindbergh.

Who was Apollo 11's backup commander?

Jim Lovell led the backup crew; by the usual rotation they would have flown Apollo 14, but were moved up to Apollo 13 so Shepard's crew could train longer.

Which body did Bill Anders leave the astronaut corps to join in August 1969?

The National Aeronautics and Space Council, an executive-branch advisory body chaired by the vice president, took Anders on as executive secretary; a stand-in trained in parallel as backup CMP in case of delay.

Which three astronauts made up Apollo 11's support crew?

Mattingly, Evans and Pogue formed the support crew, a role added for Apollo, keeping flight plans and checklists current and drafting emergency procedures.

Neil Armstrong's personal kit carried wood and fabric from which historic aircraft?

The 1903 Wright Flyer supplied a piece of propeller wood and a swatch of wing fabric, carried in his kit along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin from Deke Slayton.

How many personal preference kits, each weighing half a pound, were carried on Apollo 11?

Three were stowed on Columbia before launch and two on Eagle.

How many programs written in the ATOLL language partly automated Apollo 11's launch operations?

43 programs in the ATOLL test language partly automated the launch; the countdown went fully automatic at three minutes twenty seconds before liftoff, with more than 450 people at consoles in the firing room.

What did the crew eat for their traditional pre-flight breakfast on launch day?

Steak and eggs, with toast, juice and coffee, followed Deke Slayton's wake-up call shortly after 4 a.m.; the crew then suited up and began breathing pure oxygen.

Which backup crewman helped Armstrong into his couch aboard Columbia about three hours before launch?

Fred Haise, the backup lunar module pilot, had entered Columbia early to check switch positions and helped strap the crew in; he left the capsule about two hours ten minutes before liftoff.

How long was Columbia out of radio contact with Earth on each pass behind the Moon?

48 minutes of each two-hour orbit passed behind the Moon with no link to Earth; the command module pilot later wrote of feeling not loneliness but 'awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation'.

How did the command module pilot fix Columbia's coolant temperature problem in lunar orbit?

Toggled the switch to manual and back to auto: Mission Control had told him to run Malfunction Procedure 17, but the simpler switch cycling worked and he carried on with housekeeping.

Where is the main collection of Apollo lunar samples kept?

Johnson Space Center in Houston holds the main lunar sample collection in a nitrogen-filled vault built in 1979, with a smaller backup store at White Sands in New Mexico.