As a part of the 50-year anniversary celebrations this month of Apollo 11's July 20, 1969, historic lunar landing, we have pulled together excerpts from interviews I've been lucky enough to do with eight of the twelve astronauts who walked on the moon. Two, of course, are Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. All of these special men point to obvious similarities about their lunar landings, but each of their experiences is uniquely different, too. See what you think.
Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, 1969: "We followed our checklist precisely. The real thing differed from simulation because it was 'the real thing.' It was a real lunar module, alive and operating. It was a real moon's surface outside our window. It was really over 200 degrees F outside. The landing was a very high-risk situation. Walking on the surface was, in my opinion at the time, far less risky. But it was genuine exploration at a place where no other human so far as we knew had ever stepped before. So we were focused on doing the very best job of completing our observations and experiments in the limited time we had available. I had been very concerned about the technical details of assuring that the ascent engine could be started and would do the job of getting us back into lunar orbit. But that was in the two years prior to the flight. On the lunar surface, it did not weigh on my mind at all. This was the time to think positively."
