One Small Step

Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were launched toward the Moon at 9:32 a. m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time) on July 16, 1969.* President Nixon watched the launch in the White House together with Borman. Soon after the third stage of the Saturn V booster fired to send the crew on a trajectory that would bring them to the Moon three days later, the White House issued a presidential proclamation designating July 21 as a “National Day of Participation.” The statement declared “Apollo 11 is on its way to the moon. . . Never before has man embarked on so epic an adventure.” It noted that “in past ages, exploration was a lonely enterprise. But today the miracles of space travel are matched by the miracles of space commu­nication. . . Television brings the moment of discovery into our homes, and makes all of us participants.” Indeed, the Apollo 11 mission was the first event to be televised globally; the communications satellite required to com­plete a global network had been put into orbit over the Indian Ocean only a few days earlier. Nixon ordered all federal government offices to be closed on July 21; he urged “the Governors of the States, the mayors of cities, the heads of school systems, and other public officials to take similar action” and “private employers to make appropriate arrangements so that as many of our citizens as possible will be able to share in the significant events of that day.” While Armstrong and Aldrin were scheduled to land on the Moon on the afternoon of July 20, their mission timeline called for a sleep period before emerging from Eagle for their historic moonwalk sometime after 2:00 a. m. on the morning of July 21. One purpose of declaring July 21 as what amounted to a national holiday was to allow as many as possible to stay up well past midnight to watch the first steps on the Moon without having to worry about getting up to go to work the same morning.

On the morning of July 20, President Nixon presided over an interdenom­inational church service in the East Room of the White House. The service was attended by some 300 people, including cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, and the diplomatic corps. Borman read the same verses from the Bible that he and his crew had read as they circled the Moon on Christmas Eve, and a Quaker minister provided the sermon.27

After a virtually trouble-free voyage, the Apollo 11 spacecraft went into orbit around the Moon on July 19, and at 1:44 p. m. on July 20 the lunar module Eagle separated from the command and service module Columbia to begin its descent to the lunar surface. After a hair-raising final few moments which saw Neil Armstrong take over manual control of Eagle to pilot the spacecraft to a safe landing spot, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon at 4:18 p. m. A few seconds later, Armstrong reported “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Accompanied by Borman, Nixon watched the land­ing on television in his hideaway office in the Executive Office Building next to the White House.