It was a sixty-hour trip back to Earth. On July 24, around noon, the spacecraft pierced through the atmosphere. Three parachutes billowed out and set the craft down gently in the Pacific Ocean. A helicopter picked up the astronauts and took them to a recovery ship.
Neil, Buzz, and Mike were home.
Yes, they were finally home. But they could not see their families or friends. For almost three weeks, the three astronauts were kept in isolation. Scientists had to make sure that they had not brought back germs from the moon.
On August 13, the three astronauts and their families arrived in New York City on Air Force One, the president’s plane. All during the parade in their honor, the cheering never stopped. People threw so much confetti and ticker tape, it looked as if there were a summertime blizzard!
Neil and his crewmates not only toured the United States, they visited twenty-one other countries on what was called the Giant Leap Tour. The Apollo 11 astronauts were world famous, Neil Armstrong most of all.
Neil had never liked attention. He was happiest soaring above Earth, flying in a plane. In the years after his trip to the moon, he has tried to live a much quieter life.
He became a professor at a college in Ohio. He bought a farm. Sadly, he and Janet were divorced after thirty-eight years of marriage. Neil got married again to a woman named Carol Held Knight, who also enjoys flying.
During the years of the Apollo space program, which ended in 1972, ten other astronauts walked on the moon. NASA does not have plans to send more people to the moon. And at present there is no plan to land on Mars, the closest planet to Earth. The space program is concentrating on learning more about deep space beyond our solar system.
Yet the first trip to the moon remains an important event, a great human achievement. It was, as Neil said, a “giant leap for mankind.” |