July 21

In 1969 the Apollo 11 flight realized President Kennedy’s dream for the American Space Program: landing a man on the moon. While the lunar module actually touched down on the moon’s surface on the 20th, I don’t think that I am splitting hairs when I point out that man didn’t land on the moon until the 21st. On the 20th the two men were merely occupants of a module which had separated from a spaceship that held three astronauts, and they were merely passengers in a device that gently settled on the surface of the moon.

The two passengers were Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. Michael Collins had been left behind in the Lunar orbiter. For whatever reason the two men who had made it to the moon did not venture on to the lunar surface until the 21st.

Neil Armstrong was the first out, followed shortly by Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. Armstrong’s comment on touching the surface is often misquoted. What he said was “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” For some reason the ‘a’ after the ‘for’ is frequently left out. There is no question that what Armstrong and Aldrin did was much more than merely remarkable. I often wonder, however, what was going through Michael Collins’ mind as he sat in the lunar orbiter lazily drifting over the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin played golf on the Moon’s surface. Was he bitter about drawing the short straw and having to sit out the achievement of what had been one of mankind’s goals for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years? If it were me, I’d have been really ticked off that I had been left out and would have made darn sure to take the phone off the hook, finish all the Tang, turn off all the lights, and double lock the front door well before Armstrong and Aldrin tried to get back in.