40 Years after Apollo 11: July 16 - Launch Day!

Originally written on July 16th, 2009…

This is it. The beginning of Humanity’s longest trip so far. Start it off with breakfast, the most important meal of the day (and the only non-liquid food you’ll get for a week.) It’s a light meal of steak, eggs, toast, juice, and coffee.

Neil, Mike, and Buzz look on as Deke points out where the recovery ships will be if something goes wrong and they have to abort.

Literally over a million people have contributed to this venture in some way. See that glove on his hand? Sewn by a bunch of little old ladies in a textile shop.

Three hundred and sixty feet up, walking out to the ship. They’ve rehearsed this dozens of times. Done it in the simulator dozens more. But now, you can see on Neil’s face, this time’s for real.

As the old astronauts said, let’s light this candle. Of course, this candle is producing 7,640,000 pounds of thrust. See that little white cone part? Right above the silver part? That’s where the astronauts are.

In the launch center, a hundred men (yeah, it was men back then, and yeah, I bet they’re all lilly white) watch a decade of work lift off…

…and head for the Moon…

Once in orbit, Mike Collins comments on how he’d forgotten how beautiful the Earth is from space. Then he took this picture…