for: Apollo Eleven
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for: Apollo Eleven
The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon. It was also the second all-veteran crew in manned spaceflight history. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.
The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961:
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
Crew
Crew:
- Neil Armstrong - Commander
- Michael Collins - Command Module Pilot
- Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. - Lunar Module Pilot
Each crewmember had made a spaceflight before this mission. Collins was originally slated to be the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on Apollo 8 but was removed when he required surgery on his back and was replaced by Jim Lovell, his backup for that flight. After Collins was medically cleared he took what would have been Lovell's spot on Apollo 11.
Backup crew
- James A. Lovell, Jr - Commander
- William A. Anders/Ken Mattingly - Command Module Pilot
- Fred W. Haise, Jr - Lunar Module Pilot
In the spring of 1969 Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and had announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch (at which point Anders would be unavailable if needed) and would later join Lovell's crew and ultimately be assigned as the original Apollo 13 CMP.
Support crew
- Charles Moss Duke, Jr., Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM)
- Ronald Evans, CAPCOM
- Owen K. Garriott, CAPCOM
- Don L. Lind, CAPCOM
- Ken Mattingly, CAPCOM
- Bruce McCandless II, CAPCOM
- Harrison Schmitt, CAPCOM
- Bill Pogue
- Jack Swigert
Flight directors
- Cliff Charlesworth, launch and EVA
- Gene Kranz, lunar landing
- Glynn Lunney, lunar ascent
Nomenclature
The lunar module was named Eagle after the bald eagle depicted on the insignia; the bald eagle is the national bird of the United States. The command module was named Columbia, from the traditional feminine name Columbia used for the United States in song and poetry. The name may also have been chosen in reference to the columbiad cannon used to launch the moonships in Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon. Some internal NASA planning documents referred to the call signs as Snowcone and Haystack,See, e.g., , p. 8 but these were quietly changed before being announced to the press.
