The moon is an attractive figure to us. There are many stories about it. It looks more attractive at a moon lit night. Even a child wants to catch it. Man had a long desire to set his foot on it. The dream came true on July 20, 1969. Three American astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins, set out for the moon in a spaceship. They travelled at great speed. Just 76 hours later they were orbiting the moon.
After a while two of the astronauts, Armstrong and Aldrin, left their spaceship in a lunar landing craft and prepared to land on the moon. Armstrong was the first to climb out and step down. As his left foot touched the rough surface of the moon, he said, "That's a small step for a man, one great leap for mankind." It was for the first time that man was walking on the moon.
Just after twenty minutes minutes Aldrin followed Armstrong and stepped on the moon. Both astronauts explored the area surrounding the landing craft. Then they took pictures, set up scientific equipment and colleted sixty pounds of rocks and moon soil. They also set up a television camera on the so that the whole world could watch.
While they were busy with these activities, Michael Collins was in the main ship moving around the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon. Then they boarded the landing craft and lifted off. They returned safely to the spaceship.
They were now ready to begin the return journey. They checked and double checked all the equipments and found everything working working normally. Next, they fired another rocket, came out of the lunar orbit and headed back to earth. On july 24, they splashed down about 1430 kilometers southeast of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Millions of people in many countries of the world watched their adventure on television.
