40 Years after Apollo 11: July 21

Originally written on July 21th, 2009…

Neil and Buzz, after spending about 20 hours on the Moon, head back up to join Mike in the command/service module. And as we’ve seen almost every step of the way with Apollo, they’ve left behind the part of their ship they won’t need anymore to save on fuel. All that’s coming back up to orbit is 44 pounds of rocks and soil, Neil, Buzz, and 10,000 pounds of aluminum and steel to keep them alive and safe. Once the two ships have docked, Neil and Buzz will move all their stuff – and their prized lunar samples – over to the command/service module. Then they’ll eject the lunar module, leaving it to orbit the Moon. A few hours later, they’ll fire the big rocket on the end of the service module to escape the Moon’s gravity and head home to Earth (that little blue thing off in the distance.)