Who was with Neil Armstrong when he stepped on the Moon?

He set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 (UTC) on July 21, 1969

Buzz Aldrin (born on the 20th of January, 1930) is the second person to walk on the Moon. Aldrin is an engineer and astronaut, a former U.S. Air Force officer and a Command Pilot. He flew the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11 and landed the first manned spaceflight on the Moon in history. He set foot on the Moon on the 21th of July, 1969, following Neil Armstrong, the mission commander.

"Beautiful view. Magnificent desolation." were Aldrin's first words on the Moon. Originally Aldrin was to step onto the natural satellite surface first, but according to the positions of the astronauts in the module it was easier for the commander to leave the spacecraft before Buzz.

Aldrin and Armstrong spent 21 hours walking the Moon and brought home 46 pounds of moon rocks. 600 million people watched the translation of the walk on TV and made the largest TV audience of all times.

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129 Comments

Keith Richard Mears

What I found amazing & a further tribute to the bravery of the men involved, is the fact that today we put more powerful computers in washing machines than were used in the service & lunar modules, the whole conspiracy thing has been repeatedly debunked, but the tin hat loonies always come crawling out of their bomb shelters when questions like this are asked, it is so easy to check for yourself, the lunar surface has been fully mapped in high definition, that survey is available, without cost, to anyone willing to take their heads out of their backsides to bother to check, the lunar landing sites are plainly visible.

Pauline Grant

My husband was in Vietnam on that day, and all the days after, until he came home. Every time someone mentions this particular event my heart sinks. I sat watching it on TV with our daughter, hadn’t heard from him for such a long time, had telephoned the Department of Army to ask.....where the .......is he, they told me not to worry if he was dead I would know....All I could think of was....you can put a man on the moon, but you can’t tell me where my husband is or whether he is alive or dead. Sounds silly now, but at the time it didn’t feel that way.

Peter Thomas

michellerose, bloody well said! Conspiracy theorists care nothing of human courage and endeavour - they only care about their sad little selves.

Janice Lea Vanlandingham

michellerose, Thank you. Well said!

cgrhm

I was a somewhat disbeliever myself as a kid. I grew up in a very poor, food challenged home. I would think we send men to the moon to pick up rocks while so many starve on this planet. Then I realized what all this is about. Natural resources. Why were the US, the Russians and Chinese all on Mars the same week? Natural resources. We've finally proven through all that research on those rocks that plenty of other moons and planets have all the resources that we desperately need as we're running out on this planet. And whoever owns them first? It was a big "duh" moment.

cgrhm

Littlemordy , I recently took a nighttime picture in Montreal. It was a beautiful shot of Vieux Montreal buildings with a half-moon seemingly right above some old buildings. When I go the footage, the moon wasn't there.

cgrhm

Pauline Grant, it's hardly silly, now or then.

Stephen

I really admire these men. Today we have more powerful computers in the palms of our hands.

yatesbaz

Pauline Grant, l was a Boy Soldier in the Royal Artillery (aka Junior Leader age 16 yrs) at the time. I feel your angst. It was a wondrous event!

Armadillo

Armadillo, or rather Amrrikkka

Armadillo

Shyaine Roxanne, what is Amrikkka

Armadillo

Kevin, indeed there are many things left unexplained.

Armadillo

Rose Langel-Remze, oh it really happened.

Armadillo

tbear, the Armstrong experience is best in black and white in my experience.🤍

Armadillo

robert karel, sometimes you just gotta venture where you've never been before, take the chance, and for God's sake, live a little. The problems of the world will still be here tomorrow.