Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
5 facts about the Apollo 11 moon landing
5 facts about the Apollo 11 moon landing
Dec 1, 2025 7:49 AM

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins became the first people in history to land on the Moon. Here are five facts you should know about the most famous manned space mission.

1. The Apollo 11 mission was carried out by three mander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, mand module pilot Mike Collins. But the team that took them to the moon included more than 400,000 scientists, engineers and technicians, and workers from across the United States. Many of the people on the project were also relatively young. The average age of the engineers inside Mission Control when the Apollo 11 capsule returned on July 24, 1969 was 28.

2. puters on the Apollo spacecraft were plex than a basic calculator. According to Computer Weekly, astronauts entered mands using verb-and-noun instructions: a verb to tell puter to do a specific action, and a corresponding noun on which to do it [i.e. “aim telescope”]. To do that, it only needed 64 kilobytes of memory and operated at 0.043MHz. Today, a USB memory stick today is more powerful than the Apollo Guidance Computer.

3. Armstrong wasn’t convinced the team would be able to land their lunar module, and put the odd of success at only 50-50. “There are so many unknowns on that descent from lunar orbit down to the surface that had not been demonstrated yet by testing and there was a big chance that there was something in there we didn’t understand properly and we had to abort e back to Earth without landing,” said Armstrong. His concerns were not unwarranted since mishaps were likely. While Armstrong and Aldrin were concluding the first moonwalk, the Soviets Luna 15 probe crashed into the Moon about 530 miles from the Apollo 11 landing site.

4. Armstrong’s famous words uttered when stepping on the Moon were misheard. Most people on Earth heard, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” But Armstrong was adamant that what he had actually said was, “That’s one small step foraman, one giant leap for mankind.” “It’s just that people just didn’t hear [the ‘a’],” Armstrongtoldthe press once he was back on Earth. In 2006, puter programmer used a piece of software toanalyzeArmstrong’s words and found that the “a” was indeed there but was likely not heard because of radio static.

5. Aldrin became the first person to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the Moon. munion bread was carried in a plastic packet, the way regular inflight food is wrapped. He also carried the wine in a vial and poured it into a small silver chalice. Before munion, Aldrin read fromJohn 15:5, which he had handwritten on a scrap of paper—”I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit, for you can do nothing without me.” munion ceremony was dramatized in an episode of From the Earth to the Moon, a twelve-part HBO television miniseries from 1998. Buzz Aldrin was played by actor Bryan Cranston.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Jubilee and Social Justice: A dangerous quest to overcome social inequalities
Kim Tan. Jubilee and social justice: A dangerous quest to e inequalities. Abingdon Press. 2021. 102 pages. Kim Tan, the co-founder of the Transformational Business Network, has just published his latest book: Jubilee and Social Justice. It is a must-read for social impact entrepreneurs like Tan who, in the subtitle, calls the Jubilee adventure a “dangerous quest.” He dares heroic-minded Christians to resurrect this forgotten ordinance of the Old Covenant. For those who have never seriously practiced the Jubilee principles...
Murray Rothbard on Christianity, Catholicism, and theology
A hidden gem of Murray Rothbard’s thinking on the “Whig Theory of History” was published by the Mises Institute here in 2010. This publication was excerpted from an edited transcript of “Ideology and Theories of History” (ITH), the first in a series of six lectures on the history of economic thought given by Rothbard in 1986, published here in 2006. ITH also contained hidden gold regarding his thoughts about Christianity and Catholicism in relation to history, economics, and liberty. In...
Poverty Cure Essay Contest winners, 2021
How can we bat poverty? Students from across the globe answered that question and brought fresh ideas to the table in our recent petition, which took place as a part of the 2020 Poverty Cure Summit. The excerpts below demonstrate the wide variety of insights that students gained from the conference. Their responses are presented verbatim, with only light, grammatical edits. Prize winners: Fighting poverty is like dealing with a chronic disease and using palliative measures will not solve the...
‘Jesus was a political revolutionary’: Ibram X. Kendi ‘rejects’ orthodox Christianity
The best-selling author of How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, has admitted that his so-called “antiracist” movement believes that Jesus was a political “revolutionary” and that trying to “save” souls is “racist theology” which only “breeds bigotry.” Kendi’s excoriation of Christian e in a newly resurfaced video shot in 2019, inside a church, responding to an audience member who asks about “any role that churches munities of faith can play in this antiracist movement.” “Jesus was a revolutionary,...
Equity? New bill could kick minority teachers out of the classroom
Lawmakers in Minnesota, the crucible of last summer’s deadly riots, have made a concerted effort to increase the number of minorities teaching in the public schools. That goal is on a collision course with a bill that would cut off pathways to ing a teacher and could throw more minority teachers out of work than the state recruits. Supporters say the “Increase Teachers of Color Act of 2021” (House File 217) focuses on recruiting and retaining “teachers of color and...
FAQ: What is the Jewish holiday of Passover?
On the Jewish calendar, Passover (or “Pesach” in Hebrew) is always celebrated between the 15th and 22nd day of the month of Nissan. What is this Jewish holy day, and how is it celebrated? What does memorate? The feast of memorates the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt during the Exodus. When Pharaoh resisted the mandment to “let my people go,” the Lord visited 10 increasingly deadly plagues on the Egyptians: rivers turned into blood, frogs, lice, flies, killing...
The Suez Canal blockage: a metaphor for our economy
A team of engineers and an unusually high tide freed the Ever Given, the container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days, on Monday. Obstructing the canal that facilitates 13% of world’s maritime trade not only educated Americans about the international dimensions of our economy, it also served as a metaphor for the artificial constraints, taxes, and regulations that block so many people from participating in our economy. “Engineers raced throughout Monday to finish the job of dislodging...
Why the economy is not a zero-sum game: a simple explanation
What do these two statements have mon: “Poverty is caused by overpopulation,” and “The rich get richer only as the poor get poorer”? Answer: They both inaccurately presuppose the economy is a zero-sum game. Understanding this misconception is important when thinking through many moral, economic, and policy questions. Zero-sum games are win-lose scenarios. When losses are subtracted from gains, the result equals zero. Sports are zero-sum games. If the Kansas City Chiefs play the Pittsburgh Steelers, it is impossible for...
Study reveals exactly how teachers unions lock children out of schools
Last Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris raised the plight of harried parents dealing with the life dislocation of children being locked out of in-person education in the public schools – and erupted in gales of inappropriate laughter. Parents at their wits’ end and children whose mental health and cognitive skills are deteriorating may find more sober wisdom in a new report that explains the precise factor that determines whether teachers unions will succeed in denying students in-person education. The most...
Freedom of choice is foundational to poverty relief
This essay won second place in the essay contest of the Acton Institute’s 2020 Poverty Cure Summit, which took place on Nov. 18-19, 2020. The author will receive a $3,000 prize. An expanded and lightly edited version of her essay is presented below. – Ed. Defining and describing humanity has always been one of the trickiest questions facing philosophers, scholars, and authors – most specifically the question of “what makes us human?” Inherent to this discussion is the conversation about...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved