Valdosta Scene July 2022 | Page 17

Moon Landing Retrospect

by TERRY RICHARDS photography from The Associated Press
With the help of radio from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston , Texas (“ Mission Control ” to the public ), the two men worked through all this . They worked around the 1202 alarm , which meant the computer was constantly overloaded with data and rebooting itself . They took partial manual control of the ship and jockeyed away from the boulders . They landed with less than 30 seconds of fuel left .
At 3:17 p . m ., July 20 , 1969 , humanity was no longer bound to Earth . Men had landed on the moon .
At 10:56 p . m ., as fellow astronaut Michael Collins orbited overhead in the command module , Armstrong stepped off the lunar module Eagle onto the moon ’ s surface as an estimated 600 million people on Earth watched , thanks to a television camera mounted on Eagle ’ s exterior . Aldrin followed him a few minutes late .
This month marks 53 years since the Apollo 11 flight fulfilled the late President John F . Kennedy ’ s challenge : land men on the moon and return them safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s .
The Valdosta Daily Times asked its readers to share their memories of where they were when the epic landing took place . Here are some of those memories :
Excited fans stand and cheer when an announcement came over the public address system of a safe lunar landing for Apollo 11 during the Philadelphia Phillies-Chicago Cubs doubleheader baseball game at Connie Mack Stadium July 20 , 1969 , Philadelphia .
July 2022 | Valdosta Scene 17