Neil Armstrong: Seeing Earth 45 years later

William Atkins
Thursday, 25 August 2011 21:33

Science - Space

The first glimpse of our planet Earth from outer space happened 45 years ago when the U.S. Lunar Orbiter 1 took a picture of Earth on August 23, 1966 while orbiting the Moon. Now, Neil Armstrong makes a rare public appearance in Australia to comment on the future of U.S. space exploration.

 

During the Lunar Orbiter missions by the United States, the first pictures of Earth as a whole were taken from outer space, beginning with Earthrise over the lunar surface by Lunar Orbiter 1 on August, 23, 1966.

The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five unmanned lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 to 1967.

The goal of these missions was to help to select Apollo landing sites for the Moon's surface.

For more on this story, please read the 8/23/2011 U.S. News and World Report story 'Like No Other View On Earth' and the Time article 'The First Earthrise.'

Now, forty-five years later, Neil Armstrong, the first Man to walk on the Moon, spoke in Australia about our future in space.

Armstrong spoke to a group in Sydney about going to the Moon, and establishing a base on the lunar surface, as a way for U.S. astronauts to practice before making the much longer trip to the planet Mars.

The 8/25/2011 Australian article 'Neil Armstrong urges return to the moon to train for Mars' states, 'Now 81, Armstrong said the agency had become a "shuttlecock" for the "war of words" between the executive, legislative and congressional arms of US government.'

Armstrong added, "It's my belief given time and careful thought and reasoning we will eventually reach the right goal, I just hope we do it fairly quickly.'