Original subtitles

The communists seemed to be

putting us on the defensive on a number of fronts.

We are behind and I'm sure they're making

a concentrated effort to stay ahead.

We may get beaten more.

There are no quick, cheap or easy

victories in this game.

We are aware of the

international implications of the project

but we're not in this thing for the race aspects.

Reporter: Rockets for the lunar trip.

This will make this one seem puny.

Already are being dumped.

Reporter: The first strives

toward the stars were not without tragic setbacks.

(explosion)

You are aware of the risks?

We accept the risk, what risks there are.

We choose to go to the moon

in this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy,

but because they are hard.

♪ (The Sixties theme, Composer Blake Neely) ♪

We have good many very talented scientists.

But we did not make a major effort

in this area for many years .

And we are now behind and paying the price

of having the Soviet Union exploit

a great propaganda advantage,

with the flight of the Sputnik,

as well as the flight of Mr. Gagarin.

(rockets blasting)

Charles Collingwood: I have Marvin Kalb,

CBS News Correspondent in Moscow on the phone now.

Marvin, is there any doubt at all in your mind

that this really happened?

That the Russians really have put a man in space?

Marvin Kalb: I'm almost certain

that the Russians did

fire a man into outer space.

His name is Gagarin, he's 27.

It's a great historic scientific feat.

At that time, we didn't really know

whether a human could survive in space.

In here, boom,

the Soviets send this guy to space

and he survived.

Sergei Khrushchev: Yuri Gagarin was

some saying had affected American proudness

that we are ahead of everybody now.

It was first Sputnik set the line.

And now the first man in space was Russian.

And you can understand that

this was really in the middle of the Cold War.

There was competition of the great super powers.

Could you give us your view, sir?

About the Soviet achievement of putting a man in orbit?

And what it would mean to our space program as such?

Well, it is the most impressive, scientific accomplishment.

I have already sent

congratulations to Khrushchev

and to the man who was involved.

Andrew Chaikin: The space race

wasn't just about space.

It was about our own sense of security.

It was this new Cold War battleground.

And so it wasn't very hard to

realize that if they could put a man in orbit,

they could also put an atomic bomb in orbit.

And suddenly, the sky was menacing.

It means they're getting ahead of us

and we certainly need to

start working hard to catch up.

I think it's about time

America woke up and did something about it.

I believe it's very impressive for propaganda purposes

but I think if we put our minds to it

that this country can top that in six months.

(explosion)

From my perspective as a kid.

We were in a race against the Russians.

And the Russians were the bad guys.

And they were winning this race.

And that meant they were superior to us.

And yet they were the bad guys!

In 1960, we had astronauts

and we hadn't had anybody in space yet.

But we were kind of knocking on the door

and getting ready to go.

We're a little bit behind.

We want to catch up. We want to be the leaders.

There's another question, Doctor,

and that is do we have the stuff to do it?

What would you say now that we must do to

match this or better it?

Well the United States program

is based on the philosophy

that we don't want to pull a stunt

and risk a man's life.

For this reason,

there are certain intermediate steps planned

before we put a man in orbit

that this was successful

then and only then will an orbital attempt to be made.

Glynn Lunney: The Mercury project

was our first real response to the Sputnik

and to Yuri Gagarin's flight.

And it was a big deal for us.

I'll tell you because all of a sudden we had

seven guys and they're fighter pilot types,

very alpha-male guys,

fun to be around, you know.

It was like being with rock stars.

Reporter: It's a gala day in Houston

as its citizens turned up by the tens of thousands

to give a Texas size welcome to the U.S. space team.

They were heroes even before

the public knew their names.

They became warriors

on behalf of the United States

against our

most feared enemy, the Soviet Union.

What they were hiring these guys for

was for mindset.

They wanted experienced test pilots

who could observe and report

during a very violent and dangerous activity.

As we develop the space craft,

Almost everything we do

deals with the risky side of business.

We recognize that we can get killed

flying spacecraft. Like they can get killed

buying a T-33s or T-38s or driving my Corvette.

This is one of the facts of life

for everyone but we have a job

that is very fascinating and it's worth the risk.

Al Shepard was a natural leader.

He got the first ride into space.

TV Announcer: The Shirley Temple Program

usually seen at this time will not be presented

in order that we may bring you the

following special broadcast.

Within the next few days from this guarded wasteland,

the first American will be launched into space.

He will not go into orbit as Yuri Gagarin did,

but he will ride his spacecraft 116 miles up,

and there he'll hang weightless

for about five minutes.

Until gravity pulls him back through the atmosphere

to the sea nearly 300 miles downrange.

Reporter: Astronaut Shepard

making his way to the elevator.

There are some applause

from the hundred or so people.

And now Astronaut Shepard

ascends the gantry plane,

in a few moments will be spaced in his capsule.

T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one, zero, ignition.

Lift off.

Lift off at 34 minutes after the hour.

Roger, lift off,

and the clock has started.

All systems are go.

Some lawmakers want to reward

the Medal of Honor to Shepard.

All today appeared ready to

spend more money on our space effort.

All agreed Russia is still ahead.

But all of this was beside the point

for the wife of the first American astronaut.

Mrs. Alan Shepard at Virginia Beach, Virginia

heard the news with relief.

Reporter: Mrs. Shepard,

could you tell us, what are your feelings

on this stupendous occasion?

I don't think I have to tell you, do I?

I'm just so happy.

It was beautiful, I thought.

The Gagarin flight was a ten.

Al Shepard's flight was a one or a two,

Okay, in terms of

the capability that it demonstrated.

So, the Russians clearly were ahead of us.

So, the attitude is,

we would like to do something really big.

But small enough so that we could accomplish it.

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.

No single space project in this period

will be more impressive to mankind

or more important for the long-range

exploration of space.

(applause)

Lunney: I don't know how he decided we could do that

because when we heard about it,

we thought that they, you know, lost their mind.

This is Walter Cronkite

reporting from the cabin AC131

over Wright-Patterson Air Force Space Dayton, Ohio.

This aircraft is executing a maneuver

to make it and everyone in it temporarily weightless.

This weightless condition is one of many

that man must learn to tolerate

or overcome to survive a first trip to the moon.

Cronkite was the perfect person

for space because he was a space junkie.

He ended up covering

the early Mercury missions.

And he just became encyclopedic on it.

Cronkite: What are the hazards

and what are our scientist doing

to ensure a man's survival

in the hostile environment of outer space?

That is our story,

First man on the moon,

as the Prudential Insurance Company

of America presents the Twentieth Century.

This is Marine Lieutenant Colonel

John H. Glenn Jr. who within a few days

will be the first American

to fly in an orbit around the world.

We're embarking on a completely and new field here

of space science

and I'm happy and proud

that I can maybe contribute a little bit

in my own way in this new field.

John Glenn came along next

and flew the first orbital flight for an American.

To us, that was a huge deal

because now we had an American hero.

Who could at least stand up to Yuri Gagarin.

Godspeed John Glenn. Three, two, one.

♪ (triumphant music) ♪

Shortly before he supposed to

re-enter the atmosphere,

the word comes that

there's a possibility that Glenn's heat shield

has detached from the base of the capsule.

Chaikin: The only thing holding the heat shield on are three straps.

Which are attached to the retro rockets.

So normally, the plan is

you fire the retrorockets and then you let them go.

But now, it becomes clear that if Glenn does that,

he might be burned alive.

He went through this period of

intense higher build-up

where you lose contact with them.

I express the great happiness

and thanksgiving of all of us

that Colonel Glenn has completed his trip

and I know that this is particularly felt

by Mrs. Glenn and his two children.

It was quite a day.

I don't know what you can say about a day

in which you see four beautiful sunsets

in one day.

it's pretty interesting.

Jules Bergman: Now, we know that Russia need not

and will not have any monopoly

on man's space flight.

A new spirit has risen in US

missile men and in our capital.

I know the growing pains of project Mercury

a host of new projects will be born.

Reporter: Dr. Von Braun,

you could have gone ahead faster

if you had more money earlier, is that right?

Well, this is true.

Although there are some limitations,

you know, there's an old saying,

that it takes nine months to have a baby.

Good thought.

(laughter)

Big rockets too.

Massimino: Von Braun was perfectly placed

to get us off the planet.

He was a German, rocket scientist .

That we are pretty lucky to get after the war.

Von Braun was a futurist

and a visionary as much as anything else.

He built the team that became

America's brain trust for rocketry.

I've come to Texas today

to salute an outstanding group of pioneers.

For headlines maybe made by others

in other places.

History is being made everyday

by the men and women

of the aerospace medical center

without whom there could be no history.

When he was assassinated,

that was a personal blow.

It was a personal blow to us

because he was the guy who got us on this track.

When President Johnson came in,

you know, he was going to

continue implement what President Kennedy had done.

Those two men together

led us to where we ended up at the end of the decade.

Reporter: Visiting Cape Canaveral

are the new astronauts.

The men who will join the original seven

and ride the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.

They are the new pioneers of space.

Lunney: We were very fortunate

and that our country always seemed to have

the right person ready

when the right person was needed.

I give you Neil Armstrong.

Neil Armstrong was unflappable.

He was a natural aviator

and Armstrong just seemed never to be ruffled.

Dave Scott: Neil's a cool guy

as we all know.

And in fact all of the guys

that I was working with at the time

are all exceptional pilots.

And so it's great to be on a team like that

where they're all winners.

Gemini is the space agency bridge to the future.

With it, we'll learn man's true capabilities

and drawbacks from space.

And on the last five Gemini flights,

we'll practice several different

forms of rendezvous.

The skill needed to re-supply

spacecraft to change cruise,

the ability to operate at a new medium

that is both fantastically rewarding

and terrifyingly dangerous.

Gemini, moreover,

is a rehearsal for Apollo,

the three-man spacecraft that'll get us to the moon.

Reporter: The Russian's surprise

with another first and the first named Alexey Leonov

who they say became the first man

to walk around in space.

When Leonov,

went outside in the spacecraft,

we said, "No, he couldn't have done that."

But the fact that the Soviets

went outside successfully

and came back was a shocker.

The Soviet Unions pushed Americans

back was part of this game at the time.

I would say for most to the sixties,

we had a sense of being behind.

Reporter: It was a perfect launch

and Scorpio 6 is on its way to make space history.

Sol look, they see us.

-They see us. -They see us.

S-O-L

No. No. It's not SOL!

-SOS! -SOS!

Chaikin: The astronauts just became

part of the fabric of the country.

It was finding its way into the popular culture.

If you grew up in the 50s,

you were watching science fiction.

But if you grew up in the 60s,

you were watching it actually happen.

When Ed White went out on the first EVA.

People were holding their breath.

Chaikin: There was a real push

to get a space walk as soon as possible.

That turned out to be Gemini 4

and Ed White's space walk

was just a magnificent thing.

He went out and he had this little nitrogen bottle

to fire this little thruster that could push this way, and that way.

So he could rotate himself around,

you know, and so on.

And it gave the appearance

of being a piece of cake.

There was absolutely no sensation of falling.

There was very little sensation of speed

other than the same kind of sensation

that we had in the capsule.

I think as I stepped out,

I thought the biggest thing was a

feeling of accomplishment

and one of the goals at the Gemini 4 mission.

The next major breakthrough

will be the bringing together

of two orbiting craft.

The Russians have made one test in their program.

And presumably have learned something.

We have not yet made our first test.

So we must be considered behind.

Ignition.

The primary goal of project Gemini

was to perform space rendezvous

without that no moon mission.

Ignition.

With the lunar orbit rendezvous technique.

Where the lunar module

flew back up and rendezvoused

with the command module,

you have to bring these two vehicles together

and to get them close in such a way

that it wasn't easy to dock them.

It took a fair bit of work.

That was the moment

when we pulled ahead in the space race.

That was something

that the Russian's hadn't even come close

to doing and wouldn't accomplish

for a couple more years.

Lunney: It was unknown

as to how we were going to do that

when we first started

but we got good at it and we mastered it

on Neil Armstrong's flight on Gemini 8.

They found another object in space

and they docked them together

to make one big spacecraft,

a rocket on the nose of the Gemini.

That was amazing.

So, it's night time,

power down, have dinner

and get ready for the next day.

And I happen to look over at Neil's panel

and I saw his eight-ball

his altitude-gyro in a bank.

And I said, "Neil, we're in a bank."

They got up to one revolution a second.

So we decided to undock from the Agena

which we suspected was the problem

and then the Gemini started spinning very rapidly

and we figured out that, "Oh, it's the Gemini."

The only way that they were able to

get out of this thing was for him to

fire his thruster.

They had to stop the spinning spacecraft

before it spun so much that they passed out.

We got down alive and Neil said,

"I think we'll both have another chance

and we did."

Reporter: The Week in Space.

CBS News coverage of the astronaut Gene

Cernan's Gemini 9.

Two and a half hour walk in space

reporting from the CBS News space center,

Correspondent Walter Cronkite.

Cronkite: The space walk is over.

The hatch has been a locked closed again.

Cernan is safely back in the spacecraft

as with the disappointing space walk in the true sense.

The only thing we did not do well

was EVA, Extra Vehicular Activity.

For the last flight, Gemini 12,

Buzz brought in the idea of training in the water tank.

I was a scuba diver from 1957.

So, I knew a bit about dealing with currents

and moving around. And space walking

It was very delicate moving and you balance

so you don't exert yourself.

So I started training underwater.

Buzz put all that together

and the final EVA was done

very much by the book.

It was a big success.

So I was standing up in a hatch and

looking around and look at couple of pictures of Texas

and the astrodome and I decided to,

"Well, let me just turn around and take a picture."

Nothing unusual about that,

but that was the first selfie in space.

Gemini 12, Gemini 12, Houston...

When Gemini was over, the team of people,

the planners, the astronauts

and the people in the control center

were completely synced.

When we came out with confidence in ourselves.

It was like, "Let us have this Apollo stuff.

We're going to take it to the moon

as fast as we possibly can."

I recognized it that there is some risk.

People might look at our work

as perhaps dangerous.

But we just try to take as much as that out

the best we can, we can during a pretesting

and make sure the systems are good.

I think we train in it and work in it so much that

and understand that well enough that

we don't look at it, in this view point.

Roger Chaffee: How far I want to go?

I want to go as far as

NASA goes and during my useful time as a pilot to them.

I'd like to go on a moon flight and

if we go to Mars I'd like to go on that.

NASA looking ahead

to the first manned Apollo flight.

Now this is an early version that was intended

only for test flights in Earth orbit.

And they've had a lot of problems

with the spacecraft but they figure

that you develop any new spacecraft

you're going to have bugs.

The regularly schedule program

will not be seen at this time

in order to bring you this special program.

It was all over

in one stunned horrifying second.

At T minus 10 minutes in a simulated countdown .

An electrical spark apparently shot out

and ignited the 100 percent oxygen on the cabin

on close circuit TV screens.

Horrified engineers watch the burst of flames

and smoke envelop Grissom, White and Chaffee .

They heard their last word of shocking surprise.

The flames enveloped Apollo one,

the crewmen never had a chance.

News of the tragedy

reached the White House shortly

after formal signing of a 60 nation space treaty.

President Johnson immediately send condolences

to the families of the astronauts.

Then he issued this statement,

"Three valiant young men

have given their lives and service to the nation.

We mourn the great lost

and our hearts go out for their families."

The Apollo fire

was a shock to those of us in the program.

It was a real shock. It was devastating.

How could we put these guys in there?

How could we not see how dangerous it was?

How can we do that?

)

(gunshots)

There's reason to believe that

establishing a deadline of 1970

for the moon flight contributed to their deaths.

NASA has acknowledged

that success had dulled its earlier apprehensions,

but it's determined

not to let it revive fears paralyze it's

future efforts and that seems the proper attitude.

Your option is either to stop

or you keep going and in some ways

it's almost insulting to their memory to stop.

What you want to do is you want to fix the problem

and you want to keep going.

You want to achieve that goal

and that's what those guys would have wanted.

Any endeavor is going to meet

with tragedy and failure.

That's the way human kind has progressed,

the complete reorganization of the Apollo space program

without a doubt happened because of the fire.

Reporter: At the Langley Center

an accomplished lunar acrobat Amos Spady

gave some basic training

and moonwalking to this reporter.

Yes, I feel like Peter Pan.

He was like a big kid at a candy store.

When you doing TV

and you want to talk about something happening

the best way to do it was go and do it yourself.

And Walter enjoyed it.

Cronkite: What happens if I fall over on my face?

Nothing at all.

Very simple, very soft, slow motion inside.

Cronkite: So I fall over on my face to see?

Right. Let yourself fall.

-Really? -Right.

Okay, here I go.

Nothing to it!

Won't you to try jumping a little bit.

Cronkite: Here I go. Wee!

This is just really for fun and games.

What do you for a living, Amos?

(laughter)

Mr. Von Braun, what do you see

in the way of the vehicle

in which we travel in space in the next

35 years already in the last 15 years

we built up this system of rockets to the point

your model doesn't even fit in the roof

any longer.

Are we going far beyond Saturn 5?

I think there would be a continued need

for some such a workhorse and just rather

arbitrary how big it will be on this--

as long they're just big.

The Saturn Five is

like the mythic monument human audacity.

No matter how you look at, at this thing was

just a mind blower.

Saturn Five was actually

three big rockets stacked on top of each other.

With a spacecraft on the very top with three guys

and you knew that that sucker was

going some place.

It had a purpose in mind

that it was going some place.

You get to December of 1968

and Frank Borman and James Lovell and Bill Anders

have actually been training to fly

the first flight around the moon.

James Lovell: We kind of feel that

this flight has set the pace to begin

in earnest our lunar landing Apollo program.

Walter Cronkite: The countdown to lift off

for Apollo 8 has now

T-minus 50 minutes and counting.

This will be a first manned flight

of the Saturn five,

a largest rocket man has ever built

and it has the explosive potential in its fuel

of 2.5 million tons of TNT.

Broadcasting launch of the Saturn Five,

I never got over it.

We have ignition sequence start.

And I'm supposed to be

talking all through this.

The engines are on.

It's hard to talk when you're

holding your breath.

Three, two, one, zero.

Three, two, one, zero,

we have commit, we have lift-off.

3:01 AM Eastern standard time.

We have cleared the tower.

There's the rumble in our building.

It looks good. It looks like a good flight.

This building is shaking

under us. A camera platform is shaking

but what a beautiful flight.

TV Announcer: We interrupt this program

to present another and a series

of onboard television transmissions

from the Apollo 8 Space Capsule

brought to you by Tang

the instant breakfast drink

chosen for Gemini and Apollo astronauts.

Apollo 8 now

175,450 miles from earth

and about to be pulled in by the moons gravity.

The astronauts have now truly left the earth

and its gravity.

For this second telecast,

Frank Borman has fixed the TV camera

on a bracket below his window and

turned Apollo 8 so it faces the earth.

And now, here are the television pictures

coming through from the Apollo control.

Houston, what you're seeing

is the Western Hemisphere.

I can see it's the south western part

of the United States.

And it appears now that the east coast is cloudy.

Apollo 8 around Christmas of 1968

showed us the craters of the moon

and then showed us the earth at the same time

and spoke to us and read the Book of Genesis.

And God said, let the waters

under the heaven be gathered together

unto one place,

and let the dry land appear

and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth;

and the gathering together of the waters

called the Seas, and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8,

Merry Christmas and God bless all of you,

all of you on the good Earth.

The far side of the moon

and the Earth rise.

For the first time seen by human eyes

as well as that television broadcast.

From in orbit, around the moon--

I'm sorry on Christmas Eve? Holy smokes.

Who wrote that?

Who's the genius who wrote that script?

Pretty dang good.

(cheering)

1968 was a tough year for the country.

Assassinations, bad stuff happen in Vietnam

and people were kind of down.

It was a great way to end it with

people going around the moon for the first time.

No one's been able to do it since

beside United States.

(cheering)

Then, Apollo 9 goes up a few months later,

does everything it needs to do

in earth orbit, then, you have Apollo 10

that does the same thing that Apollo 9 does

but except that they fly to the moon

to do it in lunar orbit.

The lunar module goes down to

within a few miles of the lunar surface.

That works fine, they come back.

No one has paid attention to Apollo 10.

Apollo 10 risked death like everybody

and it's just this forgotten thing.

Yeah. They did that too.

What a shame they didn't get to land on the moon.

And just a few months later,

it came down to Apollo 11.

What kind of a physical sensation do you expect

that actual touchdown?

I hope. I hope that...

it will be relatively mild

and there's no intention to make

a smooth touchdown the way we'd

prefer to come in the several feet per seconds

so that we will collapse the struts.

So that the bottom step on the ladder

is close enough to get down to the moon and

even more important close enough

to get back up.

TV Announcer: This is CBS News

coverage of Man on the Moon.

It was almost like this enormous fly wheel

of momentum gathering speed

and a level of public attention

on those three astronauts

and especially on Neil Armstrong

because by that time, we all knew that

Neil was going to be the first one

to put his foot on the moon.

Reporter: Aldrin will follow

just 20 minutes later.

And Armstrong will take that first step

in more ways than one.

Here they are as they left the man's space center.

That's about 6:30 this morning.

They're the van backs up

through this cage elevator

and takes them up a couple of floors

to the second level.

Then, out of that cage

and across a few feet through a barge hatch

and a permanent launch structure.

The countdown going well 28 minutes

and counting.

He's got a picture there of

former president Johnson and Mrs. Johnson

as they arrived at the VVVIP viewing area.

Jack King: Apollo transfer is complete.

We're in an internal power

with the launch vehicle at this time.

T-minus 15 seconds away

from the Apollo 11 lift off.

And it's guidance is internal.

ten, nine, ignition sequence starts,

six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

Houston: Velocity 2,195 feet per second.

Houston, be advised the visual is go today.

Yeah, they finally gave me a window to look out.

Apollo 11, this is Houston,

you are confirmed to go forward.

Back here at CBS News

space headquarters, we're watching the countdown

to the landing on the moon

and waiting for the spacecraft to come around

on this side of the moon again

so we can get confirmation

that all is still going well.

Eleven, you got a pretty big audience that's live

in the U.S., it's going to live to Japan,

Western Europe and much of South America.

Appreciate the great show.

They weren't just going on a

pleasure cruise here.

They had a lot of work to do.

They needed to be on the top of their game,

working together as a crew

and with the control centers.

So they are probably in the zone.

I would have been in the zone big time.

Everything had been tried

on the missions leading up to that point,

except the landing itself,

and there was a good reason for that.

The landing was the most complex part

of the entire Apollo mission.

It was essentially a controlled fall.

Another thing go for the landing, 3,000 feet.

Aldrin: We're go, we're go.

Armstrong: Down two and a half.

Neil Armstrong took over manually

during the descend

because they were coming down in an area

that was the planned area to land

but there were boulders and some other kind of stuff.

So he had to maneuver the lunar lander

away from where it was headed to land.

Armstrong: Picking up some dust.

Which also caused everybody

to start worrying because they had

a finite amount of fuel.

And so for him to do what he did,

cause everybody on the ground

to get really nervous.

Aldrin: Go forward,

drift into the right a little.

Armstrong: And back right.

Houston, Tranquility base here,

the eagle has landed.

Houston: Roger, Tranquility,

we copy on the ground.

You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

Cronkite: Armstrong is on the moon.

Neil Armstrong, 38 year old American,

standing on the surface of the moon

on this July 20th, 1969.

Neil Armstrong: It's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

It was a moment

when it seemed like the whole country

and even most of the world

kind of stopped in their tracks

and just took all this in

with a sense of wondering, almost disbelief.

My god, can this really be happening?

Aldrin: Oh that looks beautiful

from here, Neil.

Armstrong: It's different

but it's very pretty out here.

Okay ready for me to come out ?

All set.

Aldrin: Okay, I'm on the top step.

You got three more steps and then a long one.

There you go.

Armstrong: We'll read the plaque

that's on the front landing gear of this land.

"Here men from the planet Earth...

first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D.

We came in peace for all mankind."

The real moment of truth is next.

They still have to get off the surface of the moon.

They push the button on the computer

and then bang!

They see the moon receding from them.

And then some minutes later

they're back in lunar orbit

and they're on their way to

rendezvous with Mike Collins.

Although the entire world

who watched the Apollo 11 astronauts

take man's first steps on the moon,

the predawn darkness of the Mid-Pacific

obscured their return to Earth.

So it was already daylight

when the carrier Hornet approached

and found Colombia, in the ocean's swells

President Nixon: Neil, Buzz and Mike,

I want you to know that

I think I'm the luckiest man in the world

because I have the privilege of speaking

for so many in welcoming you back, to Earth.

(cheering)

It was such a huge event

in our country's history.

I grew up in New York, this is bigger than

the Mets winning the World Series in 69.

I remember as a little boy looking up to them,

thinking that these guys are even cooler than,

you know, the Beatles.

Now these guys were the epitome of cool.

There was another one of these

suckers scheduled for November,

so the people who did it were so busy

getting ready for the next one.

They didn't have time to celebrate the first one.

Houston: Apollo 12, Houston.

Richard Gordon Jr.: Hello, Houston.

Yankee Clipper with Intrepid in tow has arrived on time.

We didn't actually spend much time

asking ourselves about the greater meaning of this.

We weren't aware of

what was going on around the world

in terms of the reaction of people.

We just pressed right on.

Charles Conrad Jr.: I think see my crater.

Wait, there it is, there it is.

Son of a gun, right down the middle of the road.

Alan L. Bean: Outstanding! 42 degrees, Pete.

It wasn't till afterwards

that we begin to realize

the depth of the significance of it.

Until Apollo 11,

the moon was unattainable mystery.

But after Apollo 11,

the moon is mysterious no longer.

Hanks: All of human experience

will be divided into two eras.

Before man walked on the moon

and after man walked on the moon.

The whole world was together

at that particular moment.

It was an example that

in spite of all that's going on down here

in spite at all that we're going through,

there is hope.

My generation

is the generation that changed the moon

from an object to a place.

And that will never happen again,

there can only be one first time.

The space program in the 1960s,

it set the standard of what we could do.

Even say today,

"We can land a man on the moon

but we can't do this."

You know, when we think within the space program,

we're like, "Go to Mars?"

Yeah, we can go to Mars.

We went to the moon in 1969, we can do anything.

Armstrong: To all those Americans

who built those spacecraft. Who put their heart

and all their abilities into those craft.

To those people,

tonight, we a give a special thank you.

And to all the other people that are listening

and watching tonight, God bless you.

Good night from Apollo 11.

♪ (The Sixties theme, Composer Blake Neely) ♪