Kimberly

First Man on the Moon July 20, 1969, is a day when everything changed. I, Neil Armstrong, was the first man to step foot on the moon. Apollo 11 was our spaceship, which took 17,000 people and about eight years of hard work, to launch the spaceship. I was the commander Apollo 11, Michael Collins was the Command Module Pilot, and Buzz Aldrin was the Lunar Module Pilot. I have had experience before my Apollo 11 mission. On March 16, 1966 I had been a Command Pilot on the mission Gemini VIII. May 25, 1961, was when it all started. President John F. Kennedy had announced that by the end of the decade, the goal of sending astronauts to the moon would be accomplished. Our country, the United States, was in a "space race" with other countries to see which country could have the first man on the moon, so we were all eager and excited when we made it to the moon. On July 16, 1969, millions of people watched me and my fellow astronauts on TV, launch our spaceship, Apollo 11, and begin our journey to the moon. Thousands of people even camped out at the Kennedy Space Center to watch it. It was my time to shine. When I was up in space, my crewmates and I had to deal with some very extreme conditions. We were in space, so there was no gravity, and it was different for us not having our usual lifestyles like we had on earth. Our journey to the moon was from July 16, 1969, to July 20, 1969, so it took about four days for us to make it the moon. When I stepped on the moon, I knew that I had just accomplished one of the greatest feats in American history. At that one moment, everyone in the world, stopped to watch ME and only ME. I called my first step on the moon, “a giant leap for mankind”. We had achieved our main mission, to perform a manned lunar landing and then return to the Earth safely. While on the moon, we studied many things, like soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar winds. We came back to earth on July 24, 1969, returning with the first samples from another planetary body. The samples that we had brought back were about 3.7 billion years old. Everything had changed after I came back to earth. I became famous! There was even a parade for us in New York City, which at the time had been the largest in the city’s history. The whole world knew me and wanted to meet me. People in school had even started to learn about me and how I was the first man to have stepped on the moon. Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and I even went on a world tour of 25 different countries in 35 days! Our mission had fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s wish to land on the moon before the end of the decade. We achieved the goal just five months and ten days before the end of the decade. I am, the first man to walk on the moon, and I will never be forgotten.