1969

— (Inventing Flight: The Centennial Celebration Series #10) —

It suddently struck me that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth...I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
-Neil Armstrong

Another Ohio aviator took the final step in the nation's goal to reach the moon. Neil Armstrong, born and raised in Wapakoneta, commanded Apollo 11 to the moon carrying fellow astronauts "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, as well as the lunar module "Eagle."

In July of 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin set the Eagle down in the Sea of Tranquility. There, Armstrong took the "giant leap for mankind," the first step onto the surface of the moon. The ground was powdery and pocked with craters. The scene had a strange color - a warm tan when looking away from the sun, but a darker gray when looking across the sun. Armstrong said it was "a stark and strangely different place, but it looked friendly to me, and it proved to be friendly."

Since the Apollo missions, no one has returned to the moon. Little evidence of the visits remains. Armstrong and Aldrin left a disc with messages from 75 nations, various medals from Soviet cosmonauts, and a symbol of an eagle carrying the olive branch to the lunar surface. The lower part of the Eagle remains, and the American flag waves permanently in the moon's low gravity. Armstrong and Aldrin's footprints, without water or wind to erode them, also remain on the surface of the moon.

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Inventing Flight: The Centennial Celebration
Icarus
John Glenn
Wright-Patterson AFB
Chinese Kites
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Leonardo da Vinci
Huffman Prairie
Montgolfier Brothers
Sir George Cayley

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