Apollo 11 — Tranquility Base

1969: humanity's first step on the Moon

On 20 July 1969 two astronauts — Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin — landed right here. Climbing down the ladder, Armstrong said: 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' They walked for 2.5 hours, planted a flag, collected rocks, and their footprints are still there. 600 million people around the world watched it on TV!

Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle touched down on 20 July 1969 at 20:17 UTC in the south-west of the Sea of Tranquility; Armstrong took manual control to avoid a rocky crater and landed with 25 seconds of fuel left. Michael Collins waited in orbit aboard Columbia. Surface activity lasted 2 h 31 min: 21.5 kg of samples, a seismometer, a laser retroreflector (still used to measure the Earth–Moon distance to the millimetre) and a solar-wind collector. The whole flight took 8 days. Since 2009 the LRO orbiter has photographed the descent stage and the astronauts' tracks.

Fun facts

• The computer that flew to the Moon had a million times less memory than a modern smartphone.
• Armstrong's footprints will last at least 10 million years.
• After returning, the astronauts spent 3 weeks in quarantine — just in case of Moon germs.