The Land on the Moon

Team Moon

Team Moon was written by Catherine Thimmesh. Team Moon is a non-fiction book. It contains 90 pages. This book explains the history of the Apollo program.

On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth"

The race to the Moon was the Apollo program. Engineers designed a spacecraft with three pieces that worked together, the command module, the lunar module and the service module. They also needed a rocket to push the spacecraft to the moon. This was called the Saturn V rocket. This launched Apollo 11. Engineers also designed special suits. They designed special suits to keep the astronauts body temperatures and air pressure; it gave them oxygen to breathe. The mission control was located at the Kennedy Space Center. It was manned by four teams of flight controllers.

NASA chose the crew for Apollo 11. The three Astronauts were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. All Astronauts were expected to be mentally, physically and technically prepared for the mission. Neil Armstrong commanded the mission. He was the pilot of the lunar module, called the Eagle. Buzz Aldrin would fly with Neil Armstrong in the lunar and would monitor the system and helping him as he flew. Michael Collins was the pilot of the command module, called the Columbia. If anything went wrong with the lunar would save Armstrong, and Aldrin.

On July 16, 1969 about one million people watched from the beaches of Cape Kennedy as Apollo 11 was launched and millions watched around the world on television. It took three days to get to the moon. Apollo 11 started to orbit the moon on July 19. The astronauts had freeze-dried meals, they had sliced bread and cold drinks and coffee and snacks. They slept strapped into one of the reclining seats. They used sleeping bags. They also used special bags to go to the restrooms. They also could shave.

With only seven seconds of fuel the Eagle made a soft landing. Neil Armstrong said his famous words on the Moon, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." After a few hours the astronauts came out. Armstrong and Aldrins's moonwalk lasted about two hours. They collected rocks, set up various scientific experiments they installed a better television camera, and the left some mementos. They planted a U.S. flag on the moon's surface. Liftoff from the moon was complete. Armstrong and Aldrin steered the Eagle into orbit around the moon and caught up with Columbia. The astronauts reboarded Columbia, they fired the engine that would take them home. Apollo 11 finished its eight day journey landing in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.

Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were placed in biological isolation suits.