Navigation

By the Numbers: ‘One Giant Leap for Mankind’

On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface with the above words.

14

The percentage of Americans who believe the moon landings were a hoax staged by NASA and Hollywood, according to a 2015 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll. The number of doubters was only 6 percent in a 1999 Gallup poll.

15

The number of Canadian viewers who called a television station in Ottawa on Sunday, July 20, 1969, to complain that the Apollo 11 moonwalk had pre-empted an episode of Star Trek.

21

The number of hours the astronauts spent on the Moon. It is also the number of words on the plaque affixed to the leg of the lunar landing model that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin unveiled on the Moon. It bears a map of Earth and reads:

“Here Men From Planet Earth

First Set Foot Upon the Moon

July 1969 A.D.

We Came In Peace For All Mankind”

74

The number of heads of nations who sent good wishes to the astronauts. Each of those messages was reduced 200 times and fitted on a silicon disc the size of a silver dollar, making each message the size of the head of a pin, but readable under a microscope. The disc was left on the moon.

76

The number of hours it took for the Apollo 11 to fly the 240,000 miles from the Earth to the Moon.

195

The number of hours the total Apollo 11 mission took. To be specific, it was 195 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds from blast-off to touchdown.

24,200

The top velocity in mph achieved by the spacecraft, which NASA said, was “sufficient to break out of low-earth orbit into a free-return trajectory, an elliptical course that if undisturbed, would loop the spacecraft around the moon and bring it back to earth.”

125 million

The estimated American audience watching the moon walk at 9:52 pm Central time, which was twice the projections made by the networks when the walk was originally scheduled to begin at 1 am.

600 million

The estimated worldwide audience that watched the moon walk.

3.7 billion

The estimated age of the 21.7 kilograms of basalt and igneous lunar rocks the astronauts brought back.

Source:  nasa.gov., tvobscurities.com, airandspace.si.edu

Article Comments