THE MOON

A GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND

THE ghostly, white-clad figure slowly descended the ladder. Having reached the bottom rung, he lowered himself into the bowl-shaped footpad of Eagle, the spindly lunar module of Apollo 11. Then he extended his left foot, cautiously, tentatively, as if testing water in a pool. That groping foot, encased in a heavy multilayered boot (size 9 1/2B), would remain indelible in the minds of millions who watched it on TV, and a symbol of man's determination to step--and forever keep stepping--toward the unknown.

After a few short but interminable seconds, U.S. Astronaut Neil Armstrong placed his foot firmly on the fine-grained surface of the moon. The time was 10:56 p.m., E.D.T., July 20, 1969. Pausing briefly, the first man on the moon spoke the first words on lunar soil:

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

With a cautious, almost shuffling gait, the astronaut began moving about in the harsh light of the lunar morning. "The surface is fine and powdery, it adheres in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the soles and sides of my foot," he said. "I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles." Minutes later, Armstrong was joined by Edwin Aldrin. Then, gaining confidence with every step, the two jumped and loped across the barren landscape for 2 hrs. 14 min., while the TV camera they had set up some 50 ft. from Eagle transmitted their movements with remarkable clarity to enthralled audiences on earth, a quarter of a million miles away. Sometimes moving in surrealistic slow motion, sometimes bounding around in the weak lunar gravity like exuberant kangaroos, they set up experiments and scooped up rocks, snapped pictures and probed the soil, apparently enjoying every moment of their stay in the moon's alien environment.

After centuries of dreams and prophecies, the moment had come. Man had broken his terrestrial shackles and set foot on another world. Standing on the lifeless, rock-studded surface he could see the earth, a lovely blue and white hemisphere suspended in the velvety black sky. The spectacular view might well help him place his problems, as well as his world, in a new perspective.

Although the Apollo 11 astronauts planted an American flag on the moon, their feat was far more than a national triumph. It was a stunning scientific and intellectual accomplishment for a creature who, in the space of a few million years--an instant in evolutionary chronology--emerged from primeval forests to hurl himself at the stars. Its eventual effect on human civilization is a matter of conjecture. But it was in any event a shining reaffirmation of the premise that whatever man imagines he can bring to pass.

For those who watched, the whole period that began with Eagle's undocking from Columbia, the command module, and its descent to the moon seemed difficult to believe.

As the orbiting command module and the lunar module emerged from behind the moon, having undocked while they were out of radio communication, an anxious capsule commentator in Houston inquired: "How does it look?" Replied Armstrong: "The Eagle has wings." The lunar module was on its own, ready for its landing on the moon.

Its twelve-minute burn was scheduled to end only when the craft was within two yards of the lunar surface. One of the most dangerous parts of Apollo 11's long journey had begun. Just 160 ft. from the surface Aldrin reported: "Quantity light." The light signaled that only 114 seconds of fuel remained. Armstrong and Aldrin had 40 seconds to decide if they could land within the next 20 seconds. If they could not, they would have to abort.

At that critical point, Armstrong, a 39-year-old civilian with 23 years of experience at flying everything from Ford tri-motors to experimental X-15 rocket planes, took decisive action. The automatic landing system was taking Eagle down into a football-field-size crater littered with rocks and boulders. Armstrong explained: "It required a manual takeover to find a reasonably good area." Had Eagle continued on its computer-guided course, it might well have crashed.

Now the craft was close to the surface. "Forty feet," called Aldrin, rattling off altitudes and rates of descent with crackling precision. "Things look good. Picking up some dust. O.K. Engine stop." Armstrong quickly recited a ten-second check list of switches to turn off. Then came the word that the world had been waiting for.

"Houston," Armstrong called. "Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." The time: 4:17:41 p.m., E.D.T., just about 1 1/2 minutes earlier than the landing time scheduled months before. There were cheers, tears and frantic applause at Mission Control in Houston. "You got a lot of guys around here about to turn blue," the NASA communicator radioed to Eagle. "We're breathing again." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.