July 16 – Countdown to Moon Day 50!!!!

nPosted on July 16, 2019

Key Points

nThis year, we will have reached the half-century mark of the first time a human walked on another world!

Yep, it’s been almost 50 years since Neil Armstrong said those famous words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

nMoon Day’s 50th Anniversary will be this Saturday, July 20, 2019. So – why am I posting this today?

nToday is the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Here is a video of the actual countdown. And here are some other “counts” involved in this famous launch:

nApollo 11 had three astronauts:

Neil Armstrong – the first human to step onto another world.

Buzz Aldrin – the second human to do so.

Michael Collins – who had to stay up in space while his crew mates did the famous stuff.

nApollo 11, the spacecraft, was made up of three parts:

A command module with a cabin for the three astronauts – this is the only part that returned to Earth.

A service module, which supported the command module with electrical power, oxygen, water, and fuel.

A lunar module designed to separate from the rest of the spacecraft in order to descend to and land on the Moon and then eventually return to orbit.

Above, the command module.
Below, the lunar module.

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nThe spacecraft was launched by a Saturn V rocket. This huge rocket had three stages of liquid propellant.

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nHow much weight was launched 50 years ago today?

The Saturn V rocket had a launch weight of 6,540,000 pounds (2,970,000 kg).

The Command and Service Modules had a launch weight of 32,390 pounds (14,690 kg).

And the Lunar Module had a launch weight of 33,500 pounds (15,200 kg).

nThat means that, altogether, the vehicle that slowly lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida weighed (at launch time) 6,605,890 pounds (2,999,890 kg).

Check out the slo-mo and closeups of the launch in the middle of this longer video. (If you want to skip to it, go to Minute 2 of the video.) Awe-some!