Back in the 1960s, when USSR and the United States were in a competition of exploring the space, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up a program in order to be a step ahead of the Russians in the space race. The name of the program was Apollo and it was run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
A few years later after the beginning of the program, Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy gave the project its real cause: to succeed in the national goal- to land on the Moon. During the period from 1969 to 1972, the program had 12 missions. Six of those missions succeeded in the goal and landed on the Moon.
Apollo 1 was the first project of the program which never left the Earth due to malfunction. Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 were the next two missions. They succeeded in orbiting the Moon, returned home safely, but never landed on the surface of the Moon.
Apollo 11, the fourth project, was a successful one. On 20th July 1969 Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and NASA astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, were the first men to walk the surface of the Moon. They explored the Moon for two and a half hours, took photos, collected rocks and planted the US flag.
There was a third member of this mission, Michael Collins, who stayed in the lunar orbit, and waited for Aldrin and Armstrong to come back. There were five more missions, after Apollo 11, which landed on the Moon as well, but were never as famous and significant as the mission of Apollo 11.
Surface area of the Moon Photo Credit Buzz Aldrin salutes the first American flag erected on the Moon, July 21st, 1969 Photo Credit Earth from the Moon Photo Credit Astronauts driving on the Moon Photo Credit American flag on the Moon Photo Credit The first photograph was taken by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon, 1969 Photo Credit Nail Armstrong on the Moon Photo Credit Neil Armstrong photographs the Moon Photo Credit
Many photos were taken during the successful mission of Apollo 11. There is also a video of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the surface of the Moon and there’s a photo on which we can see Buzz Aldrin who is placing the US flag on the rocky surface.
At that time, the most historic phone call ever had happened. The astronauts received a short phone call from the US President Richard Nixon. They stayed on the surface of the Moon for two and a half hours, planted a scientific experiment package and collected soil examples.
The astronauts had to go back to the spacecraft when the command in Huston notified Armstrong that his metabolic rates were increasing. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours on the Moon, two and a half hours of them, on the surface of the Moon.
On 24th July 1969, they returned to the Earth. After they returned home, Armstrong and Aldrin were awarded the highest medals of honor by the US government and many parades were organized to celebrate their success.
Despite all of the presented evidence, there were some people who refused to believe that the astronauts landed the surface of the Moon. Those people claimed that the landing on the Moon was fake and the NASA astronauts have never even stepped on the surface of the Moon.
One theory claimed that the landing was filmed in Hollywood, under the sponsorship of Walt Disney. According to them the film was directed by Stanley Kubrick and was based on a script of Arthur C. Clarke. This was claimed by the Flat Earth Society organization in 1980.
NASA put up with these theories of conspiracy for more than 40 years. But even though, the missions on the Moon in 2012 showed photos of the tracks of the first astronauts and photos of the flags, there are still some conspiracy theories.
In 2016, NASA got fed up with those conspiracies and decided to oppose them. NASA uploaded more than 10.000 photos of the Apollo mission on their Flickr account, thus making them public. The photos have the resolution of 1800 dpi. By doing this, NASA wanted to prove that the landing on the surface of the Moon was true and the heroes who risked their lives for both science and humanity must be honored and respected.
