NASA marks golden jubilee of maiden Moon landing

World celebrates 50th anniversary of moon landing
Aldrin walks on the moon.

London: Thousands of people are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

On July 20, 1969, the Eagle module from Apollo 11 landed at Tranquility Base. Hours later, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first person to walk on the moon.

Originally inspired by the US' Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, the mission is now remembered as an iconic moment for stargazers all over the world.

Nasa marked the anniversary by streaming footage of the launch online, giving a new generation a chance to see the historic moment that was watched by half a billion people 50 years ago, the BBC reported.

At the moment the spacecraft landed, Apollo 11 commander Armstrong said: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Charlie Duke, the capsule communicator, responded from mission control in Houston: "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again."

Hours later, as he first stepped onto the moon's surface, he uttered the historic phrase: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

World celebrates 50th anniversary of moon landing
Visitors participate in an Apollo 11 virtual reality ride on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Reuters

Armstrong was joined by his crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. All three were born in 1930, and although Aldrin and Collins are still alive, Armstrong died in 2012 at the age of 82.

Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, tweeted on Saturday: "Today, America put the big question to rest: We got there first. We landed on the moon with 250 million Americans watching our backs.

"The truth is: that mission belongs to all of them, and to future generations of Americans who dream to reach the moon once more."

Michael Collins, the third crew member, told Fox News that it's "not very often" he thinks about the mission.

Cities globally have held events to celebrate the landmark anniversary - including at Nasa's visitor centre Space Centre Houston, near the site of the Apollo 11 launch.

Military personnel put on a parachute display, and live bands performed. A New Year-style countdown will also mark the moment of Armstrong's first steps.

Artefacts from the mission have been exhibited at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Virginia, including the space suit Armstrong travelled in.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle also screened the original footage of the landing, recreating a 1969 living room complete with a contemporary TV.

Astronauts hailed as heroes

Capping a week of celebrations over the historic Apollo 11 mission, US Vice President Mike Pence joined astronaut Buzz Aldrin on Saturday at the launch pad in Florida that sent the moonwalker and his two crew mates to space for humankind's first steps on the lunar surface 50 years ago.

Pence joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon behind his fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing that enthralled people around the world in 1969.

"If Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins are not heroes, then there are no heroes," Pence told a crowd of dozens of space industry executives and NASA staff in the Operations and Checkout building, the 58-foot-tall (18 meters) chamber that once housed the Apollo 11 command module for testing. "We honor these men today, and America will always honor our Apollo astronauts."

"Apollo 11 is the only event in the 20th century that stands a chance of being widely remembered in the 30th century," Pence said.

The building is now home to NASA's Orion crew capsule, the spacecraft designed to carry astronauts back to the moon by 2024 in what Bridenstine calls the Artemis program, named after the Greek goddess and twin sister of Apollo. The capsule on deck for the program's first operational mission in 2022 was sitting beside the stage.

"The Orion is in the same cell as where Apollo was stacked 50 years ago. So we've come full circle," said Glenn Chin, deputy manager at the Orion productions operations office.

Pence, chairing the White House's National Space Council, announced in March an accelerated schedule for NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2024, halving the US space agency's previous timeline to get there by 2028 and requesting from Congress a $1.6 billion boost to NASA's fiscal 2020 budget request.

"The American space program is coming back. It's coming back with a vengeance," Bridenstine said at Saturday's ceremony. "We all love Apollo. But in the Artemis program we go to the moon sustainably, and this time we have a very diverse, highly qualified astronaut corps that includes women."

US President Donald Trump on Friday indicated he was not interested in a mission going back to the moon, despite his administration's plans for it. Trump instead repeated his interest in a NASA mission that would take astronauts directly to Mars, a vastly more challenging and costly endeavor.

"To get to Mars, you have to land on the moon, they say. Any way of going directly without landing on the moon? Is that a possibility?" the Republican president asked Bridenstine during an event in the White House Oval Office.

Bridenstine responded, "Well, we need to use the moon as a proving ground, because when we go to Mars, we're going to have to be there for a long period of time, so we need to learn how to live and work on another world." But Collins, attending the event, said he favored going directly to Mars.

The Artemis program's objective is to conduct a series of manned and unmanned missions to the moon, using its surface as a proving ground for technologies that could lay the ground work for the longer and more complex missions to Mars as soon as 2033, Bridenstine has said.

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