Nixon and the Moon Landing
On July 21, 1969 (42 years ago today), President Richard Milhouse Nixon, along with millions of others around the world, watched Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, two American astronauts, become the first persons to walk on the moon. While the two were on the surface of the moon, Nixon was able to communicate directly with the two and have a conversation with them, Later that evening, Nixon recorded succinctly in his diary "the President held an interplanetary conversation with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin on the Moon."
America and the Soviet Union had been in a race to see who could get to the moon first. The Soviets scored first in the race when it beat the U.S. into manned space flight with Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961. Later that year, then-President John F. Kennedy vowed that America would be first to put a man on the moon, saying "To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead." To meet this goal, Kennedy and his successors, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, authorized generous funding for NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
Nixon joined approximately 500 million people around the world in watching Armstrong and Aldrin as the astronauts left their lunar landing module and walked on the moon. The Soviet Union and China, America's two biggest rivals in the space race, banned the broadcast in their respective countries. After the astronauts planted an American flag on the moon's surface, they spoke directly to President Nixon,
who congratulated them on their historic mission. His phone was linked via satellite through the NASA control center in Houston, Texas.
Nixon continued to be an strong supporter of America's space program. In 1972, he approved development of the space shuttle program.
America and the Soviet Union had been in a race to see who could get to the moon first. The Soviets scored first in the race when it beat the U.S. into manned space flight with Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961. Later that year, then-President John F. Kennedy vowed that America would be first to put a man on the moon, saying "To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead." To meet this goal, Kennedy and his successors, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, authorized generous funding for NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
Nixon joined approximately 500 million people around the world in watching Armstrong and Aldrin as the astronauts left their lunar landing module and walked on the moon. The Soviet Union and China, America's two biggest rivals in the space race, banned the broadcast in their respective countries. After the astronauts planted an American flag on the moon's surface, they spoke directly to President Nixon,
who congratulated them on their historic mission. His phone was linked via satellite through the NASA control center in Houston, Texas.
Nixon continued to be an strong supporter of America's space program. In 1972, he approved development of the space shuttle program.