Moon Celebrations, Moon Movies, and Even a Full Moon on the 55th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Landing

The universe is hosting a full moon to mark the 55th anniversary of the first moon landing this week, and there are plenty of other events honoring Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s giant leap.

Aldrin, 94, the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew, will attend a grand ceremony at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on Saturday night. He will be joined by astronaut Charlie Duke, who was the voice inside the control center for the lunar landing on July 20, 1969.

Museum President Jim Kedrick couldn’t resist the urge to celebrate “the 55th anniversary of one of the most important historical moments not only in American history, but in world history.”

Can’t make it to San Diego, Cape Canaveral or Houston? There are plenty of other ways to celebrate the moon landing, including the new movie “Fly Me to the Moon,” a spoof starring Scarlett Johansson.

You can explore everything about Apollo 11 on a dedicated website. website By the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

If nothing else, soak in The full moon Saturday night to Sunday morning.

Here is a summary of some of the tributes to Apollo 11:

“The eagle has landed”

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is holding a Moon Festival at its tourist station, a few miles from where the Saturn V rocket carrying Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins lifted off on July 16, 1969. The Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control, is also participating. Four days after leaving Earth, Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off in their lunar module, the Eagle. Settle on the sea of ​​tranquility At 4:17 p.m. ET, there was little fuel left. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. Eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed from 240,000 miles (386,000 kilometers) away. “No moment has united the country like the moment Eagle landed, with the entire planet watching from below,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Friday in a message marking the anniversary.

“small step”

“this” One small step “For man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong declared when he became the first person to step on the moon. Armstrong grew up in the Wapakoneta area of ​​northwest Ohio, now home to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. The museum’s tribute begins Saturday with two “Run to the Moon” races. Model rocket launches and wind tunnel demonstrations will follow. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, came from New Concord on the other side of the state, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) away. The John and Annie Glenn Museum there will be open Saturday for astronauts to tune in.

“great devastation”

Aldrin followed Armstrong out of the Moon, uttering “awesome ruin.” They spent a little over two hours walking across the dusty surface, before returning to their Lunar Module and launching to contact Collins, the command module pilot who remained in lunar orbit. Armstrong’s spacesuit was restored in time for the Moon flight. 50th Anniversary In 2019, it is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., along with the return capsule. The spacesuits worn by Aldrin and Collins on Apollo 11 are also part of the Smithsonian’s collection and are currently in storage. Collins died in 2021.Less than a year after the 50th anniversary; Armstrong died in 2012..

Splash down!

The capsule carrying Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins—dubbed Columbia—landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969. They were recovered by the USS Hornet, a Navy aircraft carrier that repeated the mission for Apollo 12 four months later. The Hornet is now part of a museum in Alameda, California, where a landing ceremony is planned for Saturday. Some of the original recovery crew will be there. The Apollo 11 astronauts were immediately quarantined aboard Hornet, along with 48 pounds (22 kilograms) of moon rocks and soil, and were kept off-limits for weeks while being transported to Houston. Scientists feared the astronauts might have brought back moon germs. Most of the rocks remain locked inside a restricted laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Apollo 12 program landed astronauts on the moon from 1969 to 1972.

Next: Apollo Twins

NASA aims to send four astronauts around the moon next year — as part of a new lunar program called Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology. The SLS rocket for that mission — short for Space Launch System — is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center next week. It will arrive by sailboat from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. That core stage will receive a pair of dockable boosters at Kennedy before launching in September 2025 — at the earliest — with three American astronauts and one Canadian. None of them will land on the moon; that will come on a subsequent crewed mission not until 2026.