Apollo 11 -- The First Lunar Landing

0. Baby Steps -- early, unmanned missions

• Pioneer 4 (1959): fly past moon.
• Ranger 7,8,9 (1961-5): impact moon.
• Surveyors (1966-8): soft landing on moon.
• Apollo 1-10 (1966-9): practice.
• Soviets and other US missions too.

I. Launch of Apollo 11 (1969)

• Fixed camera view of gantry •
• Fixed camera view from gantry
• Camera following Saturn V
• Jetison of first stage •

II. Arrival at moon

• Orbiting the moon, discussing craters -- note the lags in the conversation •
• Undocking the Lunar Module (LM) from the Command Module (CM)

III. On the Lunar Surface

• Neil Armstrong's first moonwalk, view from camera on LM •
• Raising the U.S. flag on the moon •
• Collecting rock and soil samples •
• President Nixon phones the lunar astronauts

IV. Ascent and Return to Earth

• Top half of LM ascends to dock with CM •
• View from CM as LM prepares to dock
• CM reentering Earth's atmosphere, view of plasma "fire" out rear window
• Recovery crew helps astronauts out of capsule after splashdown
• President Nixon visits Apollo 11 crew in quarantine

Many more video clips and still images from Apollo missions are available at nasa.gov.

V. Still Images from Apollo 17 (1972)

• Night launch of Apollo 17
• View of Apollo 17 CM from LM in lunar orbit
• Apollo 17 landing site in the Taurus-Littrow valley with LM and lunar rover
• Geologist Schmidtt collects samples of lunar soil
• Lunar prospecting by geologist Schmidtt
• Closeup of the lunar rover
• Parachuting to splashdown in the South Pacific