Nation marks “giant leap”
Americans celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 feat with Tang and Moon Pies
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.» A moonstruck nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s “giant leap” by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at parties, races, ballgames and concerts Saturday.
At NASA’S Kennedy Space Center, Aldrin showed Vice President Mike Pence the launch pad where he flew to the moon in 1969. At the same time halfway around the world, an American and two other astronauts blasted into space from Kazakhstan on a Russian rocket. And in Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, nearly 2,000 runners competed in “Run to the Moon” races.
“Apollo 11 is the only event in the 20th century that stands a chance of being widely remembered in the 30th century,” the vice president said.
Wapakoneta 10K runner Robert Rocco, 54, a retired Air Force officer from Centerville, Ohio, called the moon landing by Armstrong and Aldrin “perhaps the most historic event in my lifetime, maybe in anybody’s lifetime.”
At the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Gilda Warden sat on a bench
and gazed in awe at the Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, on display. “It’s like entering the Sistine Chapel and seeing the ceiling. You want to just sit there and take it in,” said Warden, 63, a psychiatric nurse from Tacoma, Wash.
On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin undocked from Columbia in lunar orbit and then descended in the lunar module Eagle to the Sea of Tranquility.
Armstrong was the first to step onto the lunar surface, proclaiming for the ages: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
It was humanity’s first footsteps on another world.
In a speech at Kennedy, Pence paid tribute to Armstrong, Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins — if they’re not heroes, “then there are no heroes” — as well as the 400,000 Americans who worked tirelessly to get them to the moon.
Aldrin, 89, grabbed the right hand of Neil Armstrong’s older son, Rick, at Pence’s mention of heroes. He then stood and saluted, and received a standing ovation. Armstrong died in 2012. Collins, 88, did not attend the Florida ceremony. But Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, the next-to-last man to walk on the moon, in 1972, was there.
Pence reiterated the Trump administration’s goal of sending American astronauts back to the moon within five years and eventually on to Mars. He said this next generation of astronauts will spend weeks and months on the lunar surface, not just days and hours like the 12 Apollo moonwalkers did.
NASA had other celebrations going Saturday, most notably at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control; the U.S. Space and Rocket Center next door to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where the Saturn V moon rockets were born; and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
And where better to celebrate than Apollo, Pa. — in Armstrong County not far from the town of Mars and Moon Township. The historical society revived the annual moon-landing celebration in honor of the big 50. All of the Apollo astronauts have long been honorary citizens of Apollo, the society’s Alan Morgan said.
Before the Colorado Rockies’ game at Yankee Stadium, former space shuttle astronaut Mike Massimino threw the ceremonial first pitch to former pitcher Jack Aker, who was on the mound when the July 20, 1969, baseball game was interrupted to announce that the Eagle had landed.
Elsewhere in New York, organizers moved a moon-landing party from Times Square into a hotel because of heat. Youngsters joined former space shuttle astronaut Winston Scott there, as a giant screen showed the Saturn V rocket lifting off with the Apollo 11 crew in 1969.
Clocks counted down at the Kennedy Space Center to the exact moment of the Eagle’s landing on the moon — 4:17 p.m. EDT — and Armstrong’s momentous step onto the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT. The powdered orange drink Tang was back in vogue for toasts, along with Moonpies, including a 55-pound, 45,000calorie Moonpie at Kennedy’s One Giant Leap bash.
About 100 visitors and staff members at the American Space Museum in Titusville, across the Indian River from Kennedy, cheered and lifted plastic champagne cups of Tang at precisely 4:17 p.m.
“This is what we’re here for, to share the American space experience,” explained executive director Karan Conklin, who led the toast.