Video: Apollo 11 Moon Landing Remembered

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STARKVILLE, Miss.(WCBI)-Forty-four years ago this weekend, the United States became the first nation to put a man on the moon. On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong took a giant step for mankind. Remember what you were doing then?

By the late sixties, the race to put a man on the moon was in its home stretch. MSU Professor Jim Newman worked with the NASA five years before the launching of Apollo 11.

“Right, we were good about doing the first things. Of course we weren’t the first to put satellites in orbit, the Russians were. But then we came in and we beat them at the game. We beat them to the moon. But then we just let things fizzle after that,” said Newman.

“I had just had a baby and he was born while they were on the moon. He is now 43 or 44, 44,” said Francis McCarty, Starkville.

Many will never forget the words, breaking through the static, from the Apollo 11 space craft, as it touched down on the moon.

And what was said later, after Neil Armstrong’s boot touched the lunar surface.

“One step for, I know the last part, one step for mankind. Almost, almost got it didn’t I,” said Evans.

“Too bad we didn’t have color television, we didn’t have it. It would have been much better,” said McCarty.

“My husband had a patient that said we hadn’t had any decent weather since they landed that man on the moon. I think that had something to do with it,” said Jane O’Kelly, Weir.

The pictures beamed back to earth from Apollo 11 were not the best when compared with the high definition quality you’ve come to experience with our network…..but the space program did pave the way for many advancements we enjoy in the present computer age.

The moon landing happened during the Nixon Administration. Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were also on that landing team with Neil Armstrong.