On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. The mission that got them there, Apollo 11, was the culmination of the nation's decade-long cultural and scientific fascination with outer space.
Four satellite launches into the Space Race, and the score-in terms of pounds put into orbit is Communism, 1300; Capitalism, 33. And the humiliations keep on coming.
As the Apollo program finally starts to take wings, learn how the entire program, and everything it accomplished, was actually NASA's backup plan. From a fire during a routine test to Christmas messages from the far side of the moon.
Nearly every human with access to a TV watched the blurry, almost surreal image of Neil Armstrong stepping live onto the surface of the moon. But after Apollo 11 returned to earth, we got a different view of those first historic moments.
