Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is trojan media network.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: By July of 1969, the work was done. Years of testing, years of failure, years of loss. All of it led to one mission. Apollo 11.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Three astronauts were assigned.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Neil.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: On July 16, 19, 1969, Saturn, the Saturn V rocket lifted off from Florida. It was the most powerful rocket ever built. Millions watched on television.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: The launch worked. But launch was only the beginning.
The hardest part still waited. Nearly a quarter of a million miles away.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: After three days in space, Apollo 11 entered orbit around the moon.
From there, Armstrong and Aldrin moved into the lunar module. It was called Eagle.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Michael Collins stayed behind in the command module, orbiting alone. If something went wrong on the surface, there was no rescue.
He would have to return to Earth by himself.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: As Eagle began its descent, alarms sounded. Inside the cabin, computer warnings flashed repeatedly.
Fuel was running low.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Mission Control later said they did not know if the landing could continue.
Armstrong took manual control.
He guided the spacecraft away from rocks and craters.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: With less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining, the lunar module touched down. Armstrong reported the words Mission Control had been waiting to hear.
He said, houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: In Mission Control, people exhaled.
Some cheered, some cried.
The landing had worked.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Hours later, Neil Armstrong stepped down the ladder. The surface beneath him had never been touched by a human being.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: As his foot pressed into the lunar soil, he spoke words he prepared in advance. He said it was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
The world was listening.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Buzz Aldrin joined him soon after. The two men moved carefully, learning how to walk in low gravity. They planted a flag. They set up experiments.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: They also paused to look back at Earth. A small blue sphere hanging in darkness.
Home.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: The astronauts spent just over two hours on the surface. They collected samples. They took photographs. Then it was time to leave the ascend.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: The ascent engine fired.
If it failed, they would be stranded.
It worked.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Apollo 11 returned to Earth on July 24, 1969.
The mission was complete. The promise had been kept.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: But even then, the meaning was still settling in. For the first time, humans had walked on another world.
And the impossible no longer seemed impossible.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: The moon landing did not end history. It changed what people believed history could hold.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Because once humans left Earth and returned, the future opened wider than ever before.
Next time, we look at what came after the landing and what it cost to move on.
