Untitled

July 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 53

PRECEDING PAGES: NASA (

firing room

); ALAMY (

launch

);

THIS PAGE: NASA (

Aldrin on lunar surface

);

GETTY IMAGES (

footprint

)

IN TIME

Neil Armstrong thought he had a 50–50 shot at pulling it off. “There are so many

unknowns,” the first man to set foot on the moon said in a 2011 interview with an Australian accounting firm.

“There was a big chance that there was something in there we didn’t understand properly and we [would

have] to abort and come back to Earth without landing.” That he, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins—

with the help of thousands of nasa engineers, scientists and mission controllers on Earth—did pull off a

moon landing remains one of humanity’s most incredible achievements.

Consider that 50 years ago this month a 36-story-tall Saturn V rocket weighing as much as 400 elephants

climbed away from Earth atop an explosion more powerful than the output of 85 Hoover Dams. Once in

1969

APOLLO 11

ANNIVERSARY

2019

50

years