In 2019 we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Landing on the Moon, but everything had started some years before.
In 1961 John Kennedy was the President of the USA and to be superior to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he wanted to send a manned mission to land on the moon, so the Apollo 11 was prepared for it and the crew included three astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz"
Aldrin and Michael Collins. Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969. The three astronauts didn´t even have a life insurance.
Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in a Lunar Module called the Eagle. Meanwhile Collins stayed in orbit around the moon doing experiments and taking pictures.
On July 20th, 1969, at 10:56 p.m Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on another world: the moon. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbed down the ladder and exclaimed: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Aldrin joined him shortly, and described the lunar surface as "magnificent desolation." They explored the surface for two and a half hours, collected samples of moon dirt and rocks, took photographs and did some experiments, they walked around for three hours. Back in the spaceship they had the possibility to smell the moon dust attached to their suits which they described as similar to gunpowder.
Buzz Aldrin also celebrated the landing opening a small flask of wine, eating some bread and reading the Gospel of Saint John as a kind of communion to thank God.
They left behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, a plaque on one of Eagle's legs which reads, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." and a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace and a silicon message disk. carrying the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world.
The two astronauts returned to orbit, joining Collins. On July 24, 1969, all three astronauts came back to Earth safely and splashed down with the Module Columbia in Hawaii. They had to stay in confinement for three weeks, as part of the quarantine protocol and after that they spoke in the Congress and toured the world as heroes.
This year has started with the first landing on the dark (far) side of the Moon, whose geography is completely different. China has sent Chang'e-4, a space probe, which has landed on Thursday 3rd January at 10:26 (Peking Time).
It is carrying instruments to analyse the unexplored region's geology, as well to conduct biological experiments with seeds and silkworms' eggs.
The Chang'e-4 probe is aiming to explore a place called the Von Kármán crater, located within the much larger South Pole-Aitken Basin - thought to have been formed by a giant impact early in the Moon's history.
