CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) A half-century ago, in the middle of a mean year of war, famine, violence in the streets and the widening of the generation gap, men from planet Earth stepped onto another world for the first time, uniting people around the globe in a way not seen before or since.
Hundreds of millions tuned in to radios or watched the grainy black-and-white images on TV as Apollo 11s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, in one of humanitys most glorious technological achievements.
Astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon alone in the mother ship while Armstrong proclaimed for the ages, Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, was struck by the banding together of Earths inhabitants.
It was a wonderful achievement in the sense that people everywhere around the planet applauded it: north, south, east, west, rich, poor, Communist, whatever, Collins, now 88, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
That sense of unity did not last long. But 50 years later, Apollo 11 the culmination of eight years of breakneck labor involving a workforce of 400,000 and a price tag in the billions, all aimed at winning the space race and beating the Soviet Union to the moon continues to thrill.
For the golden anniversary, NASA, towns, museums and other institutions are holding ceremonies, parades and parties, including the simultaneous launch of 5,000 model rockets outside the installation in Huntsville, Alabama, where the behemoth Saturn V moon rockets were born. Apollo 11K and Saturn 5K runs are go at NASAs Kennedy Space Center.
Armstrong, who expertly steered the lunar module Eagle to a smooth landing with just seconds of fuel left, died in 2012 at 82. Aldrin, 89, who followed him onto the gray, dusty surface, has kept an uncharacteristically low profile in the run-up to the anniversary.
Back in 1961, NASA had barely 15 minutes of human suborbital flight under its belt Alan Shepards history-making flight when President John F. Kennedy issued the Cold War-era challenge of landing a man on the moon by decades end and returning him safely.
At the time, the Soviets were beating America at every turn in the space race, with the first satellite, Sputnik, and the first spaceman, Yuri Gagarin.
Kennedys challenge struck John Tribe, one of Cape Canaverals original rocket scientists, as impossible.
We were in the rocket business, so we were doing some weird and wonderful things back in those days. But, yes, it was an unbelievable announcement at that time, he said. It took a lot of guts.
NASAs Project Mercury gave way to the two-man Gemini flights, then the three-man Apollo program, dealt a devastating setback when three astronauts were killed in a fire during a 1967 test on the launch pad. The pace was relentless amid fears the Soviets would get to the moon first.
Cape Canaverals Bill Waldron remembers working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, six months at a clip on the lunar modules.
The pressure was so intense leading up to the flight that Collins developed tics in both eyes.
Launch day Wednesday, July 16, 1969 dawned with an estimated 1 million people lining the sweltering beaches and roads of what had been renamed Cape Kennedy in memory of the slain president.
