10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Blastoff! The year is 1969 and the date is July 16. Three astronauts had just taken off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida their space-ship was called The Saturn V their names were Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, and they were bound for the moon, each one of them was hand-picked by NASA and had gone through four years of college, and training with NASA for the mission. After one and a half earth orbits Saturn V fired up its engines and was off for the moon. On July 19 Saturn V came into the moon's orbit.
On the twentieth Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong boarded Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was then fired off Saturn V and started its decent to the surface of the moon. On its decent the Apollo 11 had some problems and Neil Armstrong had to land the spacecraft manually. It landed on the moon at exactly 4:17:40p.m. Shortly after it landed Neil Armstrong said “Houston, Tranquility Base here - The Eagle has landed.” Then Neil Armstrong left Apollo 11 and took the first steps on the moon saying the famous quote “One Small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin followed about 19 minutes later. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong got to walk on the moon and do experiments. Michael Collins stayed and piloted the spaceship Saturn V around the moon. Neil and Buzz did experiments, tests, and took back 21.7 kilograms of rocks and soil. They spent about 20 hours on the moon. Then on the twenty-first of July Apollo 11 took off from the moon and connected with Saturn V orbiting around the moon.
Finally they started back to the Earth. On the 24th of July they splashed down 15 miles away from their target the USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean. I think this was a great time in American history. It shows how advanced we are and how fortunate we are to live in America.
