Space is providing a full moon this weekend for the 55th anniversary of the first moon landing, and plenty of other events honoring Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s giant leap.
Aldrin, 94, the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew, opens a gala at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on Saturday night. He will be joined by astronaut Charlie Duke, who was the voice inside Mission Control for the July 20, 1969 moon landing.
Museum president Jim Kidrick couldn’t resist thanking “55 years to the day of one of the most historic moments not only in American history, but in the history of the world.”
Can’t make it to San Diego, Cape Canaveral or Houston? There are plenty of other ways to celebrate the moon landing, including the new movie “Fly Me to the Moon,” a light-hearted look back starring Scarlett Johansson.
And you can explore all things Apollo 11 at the special website of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
If nothing else, get wet full moon Saturday night to Sunday morning.
Here’s an overview of some of the Apollo 11 tributes:
‘The Eagle Has Landed’
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is holding a moonlit celebration at its tourist stop, just a few miles from where the Saturn V rocket carrying Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins thundered on July 16, 1969. Houston’s Johnson Space Center, home to Mission Control, is also getting in on the act. Four days after Armstrong and Aldrin left Earth in their Lunar Module Eagle, they settled by the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 PM ET with almost no fuel remaining. “Houston, calm base here. Eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed from 240,000 miles (386,000 kilometers). “No moment has united the earth more than when the Eagle landed, as the entire planet Earth watched from below,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an annual report Friday.
‘One Small Step’
“It is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong declared when he became the first man to walk on the moon. Armstrong grew up in northwest Ohio’s Wapakoneta, now home to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. Saturday’s tribute to the museum begins with a pair of “Run to the Moon” followed by model rocket launches and wind tunnel demonstrations John Glenn, the first American to fly around the Earth, came from New Concord, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) away. The John and Annie Glenn Museum there will be open for your on Saturday astronaut repair.
‘magnificent wasteland’
Aldrin followed Armstrong outside on the moon and delivered a “magnificent desolation.” They spent a little over two hours tramping the dusty surface before returning to their lunar module and blasting off to reconnect with Collins, the command module pilot who remained in lunar orbit. Armstrong’s space suit for the lunar shot was recovered in time 50th anniversary in 2019. It is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington along with their return capsule. Aldrin and Collins’ Apollo 11 spacesuits are also part of the Smithsonian’s collection and are currently in storage. Collins died in 2021less than a year after the 50th anniversary; Armstrong died in 2012.
Splash Down!
On July 24, 1969, the capsule carrying Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins—nicknamed Columbia—split up in the Pacific. They were retrieved by the USS Hornet, a Navy aircraft carrier that repeated the role four months later for Apollo 12. The hornet is now part of a museum in Alameda, California, with a splashdown party planned for Saturday aboard the ship. Some of the original rescue crew will be there. The Apollo 11 astronauts immediately went into quarantine aboard the Hornet and, along with 48 pounds (22 kilograms) of moon rocks and soil, remained off limits for weeks as they were transferred to Houston. Scientists feared that astronauts may have brought back lunar embryos. Most of the rocks remain sealed in a confined laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Apollo program landed 12 astronauts on the moon between 1969 and 1972.
Next up: Apollo’s twin
NASA aims to send four astronauts around the moon next year – part of a new moon program named Artemis after Apollo’s twin in Greek mythology. The SLS rocket for this flyby — short for Space Launch System — is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center next week. It arrives by boat from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. That basic stage will get a couple of boosters at Kennedy before it blasts off in September 2025 — at the earliest — with three American astronauts and one Canadian. None of them will land on the moon; which will arrive on the next mission with a different crew in 2026 at the earliest.