Reliving the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Pictures

I was 10 years old when my mother let my brother and me stay home from school, to watch the first Mercury launch in 1961. I watched every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launch after that. Part of the excitement of the space race was being able to witness it actually happening. Not just the launches and recoveries, but many of the flights had live TV broadcasts from space. I saw "2001, A Space Odyssey" in April of 1969. I marveled at its vivid depiction of the moon, and wondered if we would succeed. At the time, there was great uncertainty about the ability to make a soft (not crash) landing on the moon. The return relied on a single rocket engine. No backup. No chance of a rescue mission. Nixon had a speech already written in the even the astronauts were stranded. Looking back, it was indeed a time of great exhilaration and national unity. I remain hopeful that we as a country can again be united.

I believe it was an announcer from the BBC who, after the launch, said 'today, three young Americans left on a journey of mythological proportions." (BBC, please pardon any lapses in my memory) This had a profound effect on me - that in my lifetime reality had overtaken mythology.

Those of us who were around then will remember the comraderie among total strangers during these moon missions. On Xmas eve 1968, people all clustered around the front of the appliance store to watch Apollo 8 coverage through the window, snow flurries. In our mid-teens, my circle of friends built model rockets and would get together to launch them on the days of Apollo launches. Always in the street in front of a particular friend's house, because their TV was small and they had a long extension cord. So we would turn up the TV real loud and count down in sync with it. After several missions, we got pretty good at pressing the button the right number of seconds ahead of "Liftoff!" so they would take off at the same time as the Saturn. We custom-built scale models of actual US rockets out of tubes and balsa wood boards that you would buy in bulk. The plans came from Model Rocket News. Custom paint, to spec. One was a Gemini Titan, which needed transparent fins for guidance because the actual Titan had no fins. I built the Mercury Redstone - the little wooden struts of the escape tower had to be re-built after every launch. Anyway, this 50th brings all these memories back. We set up our 35mm cameras on tripods and took pictures from the TV screen. I just found the slides of Armstrong stepping off the LM, and of he and Buzz running around. We would stay up all night for this and sometimes raided our parents' "contraband." Next is to find the slide scanner...

Back in the sixties when there was big news out of the US it was all too often horrific and had all the traumatic impact of a vicious punch to the solar plexus, but the moon landing, which may well represent America's crowning glory, was truly transcendent; an indelible viewing experience that made this reader feel forever grateful to America for allowing every human being around the whole world feel part of something so unprecedentedly historic and out of this world special.

I can clearly remember that day. I was taking drivers training in northern Minnesota. Our instructor loved to listen to the radio. David Bowie's Space Oddity was playing, maybe an hour or so before touch down. I had never heard it before and have loved it since. What timing!

Even after all of this time, the whole feat staggers the imagination. A stupendous and splendid achievement!

The photo showing the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo 11 being rolled to its launch pad is mislabeled. The label claims the rocket is "on its way to Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral on May 17, 1969." From December 1963 until October 1973, Cape Canaveral was called Cape Kennedy.

Everybody spells it wrong, even my beloved NY Times. It's Ukulele, not Ukelele. Pronounced Oo - Ku - Lei - Lei, more or less. Knowing that Neil Armstrong owned one just made my day. Thanks for that.

"...face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." -- The Great Gatsby, 1925, final page Um, nope. Not the last time.

After Sputnik I wanted to be an astronaut. My Dad raised me like a boy, bought me a reflecting telescope (not cheap), and we saw the rings of Saturn, the Orion nebula, the double stars in Orion's knife. There were no books for kids, so I read George Gamov's "One, Two, Three, Infinity" and "Flatland." I also read Ace double-novel sci-fi--Andre Norton was a fav. My ex-husband (with a better memory than I) reminded me of something I'd forgotten. In the summer between Junior High and High School, I took a class in Astronomy. Apparently the instructor was this awful TA who thought girls were dumb. I don't remember it--guess I blocked it out. But by high school my grades in Math & Chem were going down, while English and Drama were all A's. Wonder what might have happened if I had a teacher who believed in me.

I was 10 when I watched science fiction become science reality. I had read comic books, sci-fi novels by Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and the original moon novels by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I'd watched Lost in Space and Star Trek on TV, and 2001: A Space Odyssey at the movie theater. We had an annual science fair every spring, and I did my project on the upcoming moon landing. I didn't have money to buy a model or do anything other than a poster board with drawings and pages of text taped on, but it won a red second-place ribbon anyway. What a thrill it was to watch the LEM touch down on the moon, Neil Armstrong to step on the moon, and then he and Buzz Aldrin to prance around the lunar surface. What a mind-blowing achievement. Thanks to all still living who made it possible.

I was 14 and followed the space race religiously. Only time I got really frustrated though was after the landing. It was getting on for 4 am and bed called but I had to wait for hours after the landing to see man on the Moon. Rest of the family had long gone but I stayed put. Think it seemed an eternity from the opening of the hatch to the first steps even. Of course when I did hit the sack, the excitement of the moment meant that not much sleep was had that day. Well worth the baggy eyes and constant yawning later on, to see history being made. Those years leading up to the landing and even some that followed were very exciting, though lots of tragic events were interspersed within the fascination I had with the whole journey from Mercury to Apollo.

I was 13 years old and remember watching the moon landing with our family in Wauwatosa, WI. My parents had a 1963 Admiral B & W Console TV (purchased new in Ohio) and I believe we watched the LEM landing and Neil Armstrong's descent to the moon surface on the local CBS affiliate. I'm pretty sure I remember Walter Cronkite giving still photography advise for those with a 35mm camera. My Dad went to get his camera, followed the instructions, and shot several photos. Those "slides" are somewhere in my parents collection. I grew up watching all the spaceflights. I wanted so much to be a "Spaceman", an Astronaut. But, incredibly poor eyesight recognized in a 2nd grade Ohio state school screening put that out of the question. I checked out all the Space books multiple times from our elementary school library, it was a great time to be alive. Terrific '60's music, real leaders like MLK Jr., RFK, and JFK. And then the moon landing. I hope our country can pull itself together once again and harken back to those inspiring leaders and find our true commonalities to take on our Earthly and beyond challenges together, and in peace. Take care everyone.

Thank you, NY Times for these photos. I will be reflecting heavily come July 20th. And remembering mightily. I was a 21 year-old soldier in Vietnam when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and I recall listening to Neil Armstrong's now famous words in real time on a hand-held transistor radio. I remember feeling intense pride in my country for that spectacular achievement. Pride that I needed to feel because my tour of duty in Southeast Asia, almost at an end, had depleted me of that feeling. I remember the Vietnamese who were working for us did not believe that we had actually landed on the moon. They thought it to be a hoax. The fact that there are Americans today who also believe that makes me shake my head. No matter. What an achievement, America. Proud of you.

All with less computing power than the iPhone in my pocket. I wish society were willing to be as bold and we back then. When I think of the moon landing, the period of "great exploration" when the Europeans sailed off into the unknown, and the western migration; and then compare it to now it seem obvious to me that as a species we seem to have lost an appetite for risk. With the obvious exception of refuges and migrants of today. But I suppose on some level it is easier to try what many would consider impossible when you have nothing to lose. Those of us with resources (and I am speaking about pretty much everyone in the first world, where even the poor are rich compared to the poor of the third world) who live a life of relative comfort and plenty have become far too scared of losing what we have to do bold things.

really cool! i saw a few pics i hadn’t seen before. what a beautiful exhilarating time, when the United States was pushing forth the frontiers for all mankind. simply amazing.

I remember huddling around the TV with my parents (my dad came home from work early that day, I think) to listen to the landing — “You’ve got a bunch of guys breathing again,” mission control said, as the Eagle took longer to find a landing spot than they’d planned, and we could breathe again, too. Then, a few hours later, the moon walk. The grainy images transfixed and thrilled us. I couldn’t sleep from the excitement. I walked outside later that night to look up at the sky in wonder. What a precious memory, of the event and of my parents.

I was born in 1974 so this was not a part of my life either. However, I remember the story my mother told me of my great-grandfather watching the landing and not believing it was real. He was born in 1888, before air travel even existed. He refused to believe that they had successfully landed on another planet. He told anyone who asked for his thoughts that the whole thing was staged in and by Hollywood. I wonder how many millions of people around the world refused to believe because their position would have been totally understandable if they were a certain age.

I was born in 1974 so this monumental event was not part of my life. However, over the past couple of weeks I have avidly watched documentaries about it on tv and I weep every time they show the landing, and most of all, when they show the world’s awestruck reaction. I weep because there hasn’t been anything positive since then that has brought us together as Americans and as citizens of planet Earth. My generation had 9/11, but that was a tragedy. I long for something beautiful and awe inspiring to unite us once again.

I wasn't even six years old, but my imagination was fully gripped by this and future voyages to the moon. I wonder what momentous event would linger in the minds and imaginations of today's young? Frankly, I am not sure I want to know.

I was 12 years old, watching on my parents 19" BW tv set in the living room. One of my greatest childhood memories. No country in the world has ever come close to matching that.

I was seven years old then, watching the murky images of the landing on my grandmother's tiny living room television. To this day, it still takes my breath away.

Thank you! Awesome pictures of one of our greatest achievements! I was born in April, 1969, just months before Apollo 11. I like to rib my children about there being two kinds of people: those born before man landed on the moon and those born after.

A number of years ago I 'discovered' something new about the Apollo 11 photographs. They were taken with a custom camera made by Victor Hasselblad in Sweden, which used a Zeiss lens. At that time, all of the Zeiss lenses were made in a factory in East Germany. This was behind the Iron Curtain, during the Cold War. This meant that the Apollo moon photographs were made using lenses smuggled out of the Eastern bloc through Sweden...something that I'm sure was not lost on NASA or the Soviets at the time. The Zeiss lens was known for being a high contrast lens, meaning that the glass is of very high purity so that the lens does not 'glow' as much when light passes through it. I've never seen this 'fact' (if it is a fact) in any of the books I've read about the Apollo missions. In the 1990's I purchased a commercial version of the same camera: the Hasselblad 500c. I had been interested in the camera because it was used by all twelve (12) American astronauts who went to the moon. The camera I had was made in 1968, but it was the same model that the Apollo cameras were based on. It was designed by Swedish inventor Victor Hasselblad. I used that camera for about ten years for fine art photography.

Ah yes, back when there was unadulterated pride in being American because we could all work together to achieve great things. The astronauts knew that, while being the face of this amazing achievement, there were thousands of scientists, engineers and other support personnel who actually made it possible. That was the real meaning behind Obama's quote "You didn't build that."

Thank you for these photos. They bring back vivid memories of the moon landing - a monumental event capping a tumultuous decade and the end of my "childhood."

Awesome photos and captions - gives me goosebumps and brings up great memories of watching live on TV with my grandparents. Thanks, NYT.

These photos are still breathtaking 50 years on.

I was an air traffic control supervisor in the tower at Yokota AB, Japan for the historic landing and was listening to it on Armed Forces Radio. I had been an avid fan of science fiction all my life and had thought such a monumental occurrence would not be within my life span. I don't think I ever felt prouder to be an American. ♥

Even 50 years removed, I still get a thrill remembering watching the landing in my Takoma Park, MD apartment on a 9" B&W TV along with my Burmese python, George. I often wonder how many other pythons got to witness this historic event.

I will never forget watching on a small b/w TV set in Sugarbush VT in the Green Mountains the Apollo 11 landing on the moon in summer of 1969. Though only 9 years of age it was spellbinding and moving to my young soul and affected me in ways I am still feeling 50 years later. The awesome technology we as a nation harnessed was truly awe inspiring, and I wonder why we have not harnessed such incredible talent as a nation again, Why have we slid so far back that we are in the basement as a nation when it comes to creating awe inspiring transformative events and technology. We can do better than this!