Explanation:
It had never been done before.
But with the words "You're Go for landing",
50 years ago
this Saturday, Apollo 11 astronauts
Aldrin and
Armstrong were cleared to make the
first try.
The next few minutes would contain more than a
bit
of drama, as an unexpected boulder field and an unacceptably sloping crater loomed
below.
With fuel dwindling,
Armstrong
coolly rocketed the lander above the lunar surface as
he looked for a clear and flat place to land.
With only seconds of fuel remaining, and with the help of
Aldrin and
mission control calling out data,
Armstrong finally found a safe spot -- and put
the Eagle down.
Many people on Earth listening to the live audio felt great relief on hearing "The
Eagle has landed", and
great pride knowing that for the first time ever,
human beings were on
the Moon.
Combined in the
featured descent video are two audio feeds, a video feed similar to
what the astronauts saw, captions of the dialog,
and data including the tilt of the Eagle lander.
The video concludes with the
panorama of the lunar landscape visible
outside the Eagle.
A few hours later,
hundreds of millions of people across planet
Earth, drawn
together as a single species,
watched fellow humans walk on the Moon.
