Mankind’s First Steps on the Moon: The Ultra High Res Photos

In 1961, John F. Kennedy asked a lot of the U.S. space pro­gram when he declared: “I believe that this nation should com­mit itself to achiev­ing the goal, before this decade is out, of land­ing a man on the Moon and return­ing him safe­ly to the Earth.” NASA hit that ambi­tious tar­get with a few months to spare. On July 20, 1969, the Apol­lo 11 land­ed on the moon and Neil Arm­strong and Buzz Aldrin took their famous first steps on the des­o­late lunar sur­face. The orig­i­nal video is grainy, hard to see. But the pho­tos tak­en dur­ing the mis­sion are any­thing but. To cel­e­brate the 40th anniver­sary of the moon land­ing (back in 2009), the folks at Spac­eRip stitched togeth­er a col­lec­tion of high res­o­lu­tion pho­tos from the Apol­lo 11 mis­sion, then set the slideshow to Chopin’s Trois nou­velles études, 2nd in A flat major. You can find this clip housed in our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Moon Up Close, in HD

Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD)

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)