40 years ago there was one ... giant leap...

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two humans to land on the moon 40 years ago today. At 10:56PM Eastern, Armstrong stepped off the ladder of Apollo 11's LEM Eagle and said those words everyone knows.

These nine or ten minute videos on Youtube are Walter Cronkite's coverage of the event for CBS. The shots of the ship during the descent are CBS animations used at the time. If you were watching it back then, this is what you would have seen. I was only two and a bit years old, and my brother just over a month old when this happened. According to my mom, we stayed up and watched it on TV, but I don't recall it. Watching these videos today as I added them to the blog was quite cool. Not exactly Bruce Willis landing on an asteroid, but imagine watching these in 1969 live on TV? Must have been something. Still is.

Forty years on, we have a reusable shuttle docked to an orbiting space station with a total of 13 astronauts on board, including two Canadians - with one of the 13 being the 500th person in space. And NASA announced on Friday that the recently launched LRO has just imaged the landing sites of all but one of the Apollo missions.

Part 1:Eagle descends to the surface



Part2: on the surface
Skip to about 7:15 in this video for the descent down the ladder.



Part 3: Stepping off the LEM.
"Live from the surface of the Moon"



Part4: Out on the surface and collecting samples



Part5: Both Aldrin and Armstrong outside on the surface.



Part6: moving TV camera from LEM to surface.



Part7: LEM seen from the surface & how to walk



Final Video: More on Surface
& Pres Nixon's call to Aldrin and Armstrong

**Videos wont be visible on Facebook, so check them out on the original post on my blog.

Mike

Mike Wood Photography