Apollo 11 was the first human spaceflight to land on the Moon. The 1969 mission's wide effect on popular culture has resulted in numerous portrayals of Apollo 11 and its crew, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.
The mission was extensively covered in the press. Over 53 million US households tuned in to watch the Apollo 11 mission across the two weeks it was on TV, making it the most watched TV programming up to that date. An estimated 650 million viewers worldwide watched the first steps on the Moon.[1][2][3]
After their return, the astronauts went on what was called the "Giant Leap" tour, visiting 23 countries in 38 days.[4] Starting in Mexico City, where they donned sombreros and were given a second parade, their tour took them through South America, to Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, England, and Vatican City.[4] After a rest in the U.S. embassy in Rome they went on to Turkey and Africa.[4] In Zaire, Buzz Aldrin leaped over the barricade between him and some entertainers and joined in with their dancing.[4]
Missing from the tour was Hungary, which rejected the United States's invitation to host the astronauts.[5] Relations between Hungary and the United States were strained at the time over the non-return by the U.S. of the Crown of St Stephen.[5]
Many countries have issued stamps commemorating the mission.
The United States issued a US$2.40 stamp commemorating the 20th anniversary in 1989, a stamp for the 25th anniversary, and a 33¢ stamp commemorating the 30th anniversary in 1999.[6][7] The 20th anniversary stamp caused some concern when it was issued, as the law forbade living people from being depicted on stamps, and the image was of two astronauts planting a U.S. flag on the Moon.[7] However, it was never actually officially stated by the USPS that the figures were specifically Armstrong and Aldrin, and not just generic astronaut figures.[7] Other stamps issued included a 10¢ stamp on 1969-09-09 showing an astronaut descending a ladder from a lunar module, and the US$9.95 anniversary stamp issued in 1994.[7] The 1969 stamp art was by Paul Calle, the 1989 art by his son, and the 1994 one by both.[8]
The postal service of Eire issued a commemorative €1 stamp for the 50th anniversary in 2019, but mis-spelled the word "gealach" (Gaelic for "Moon") as "gaelach" ("Irish"), an accidental transposition during design that was not caught in proof.[9] The USPS issued two 50th anniversary stamps as part of its "Forever" collection, one a photograph of the Moon with the landing site marked, and the other one of Armstrong's pictures of Aldrin.[10]
The astronauts themselves had, before the mission, signed what were called "insurance covers", stamped envelopes that were essentially life insurance in the form of memorabilia that family members could sell off in the events of the astronauts' deaths.[11] This practice would continue through to Apollo 16.[12]
Armstrong and Aldrin also cancelled a commemorative stamp whilst on the surface of the Moon.[13] Originally, they were to have done this reciting pre-scripted dialogue that had been supplied by USPS public relations.[13] But the supplied script was lengthy and stilted, the Washington Post commenting that it would have lasted "for the better part of one orbit of the moon" and resulted in "a veritable barrage of phone calls from a flabbergasted public", and NASA decided that the astronauts had enough to do; so the stamping was without ceremony.[13]
The first song played from the surface of the Moon, chosen by Aldrin, was Quincy Jones's and Frank Sinatra's version of "Fly Me to the Moon".[14] The BBC had used a hurriedly re-recorded version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for its news coverage of the landing, but did not play the song again until the mission was over, because of the way that the song lyrics ended.[15]
Contemporary movies that did well because of the public's interest in the Moon landing were 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, and Planet of the Apes.[16][17]
The United States of America acknowledged the success of Apollo 11 with a national day of celebration on Monday, July 21, 1969.[18] All but emergency and essential employees were allowed a paid day off from work, in both government[19] and the private sector. The last time this had happened was the national day of mourning on Monday, November 25, 1963, to observe the state funeral of President John F. Kennedy, who had set the political goal to put a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and bring him back to Earth safely.
A replica of the footprint left by Neil Armstrong is located at Tranquillity Park in Houston, Texas.[20] The park was dedicated in summer of 1979, a decade after the first Moon landing. In 2019 Buzz Aldrin's well-known photograph of his own footprint was depicted on the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins.[21]
The Apollo 11 Cave in Namibia was named after the flight upon its successful return to Earth.[22]
Soon after the mission a conspiracy theory arose that the landing was a hoax, a theory widely discounted by historians and scientists.[48][49][50] It may have gained more popularity after the 1978 film Capricorn One portrayed a fictional NASA attempt to fake a landing on Mars.[51]
There is a humorous and ribald urban legend that when Armstrong was a child, the wife of a neighbor named Gorsky, when asked by her husband to perform oral sex, had ridiculed him by saying "...when the kid next door walks on the Moon!" and then decades later while walking on the Moon Armstrong supposedly said "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky". In 1995 Armstrong said he first heard the story in California when comedian Buddy Hackett told it as a joke.[52] A short film based on the legend was released in 2011.[53]
All three major American broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC had live coverage of the Moon landing. In the United States, 94 percent of people watching television were tuned into the event.[54]
By the time of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, the two islands were each network-capable via microwave link, but the link over Cook Strait had not been completed, and there was no link between New Zealand and the outside world. Footage of the Moon landing was recorded on video tape at the Australian Broadcasting Commission's ABN-2 in Sydney, then rushed by an RNZAF English Electric Canberra to Wellington and WNTV1.[55] To forward this to the South Island, the NZBC positioned one of its first outside broadcasting vans to beam the footage to a receiving dish across Cook Strait, from which it was forwarded through the recently commissioned South Island network.
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