Apollo 11 Facts for Kids

A Picture of the Apollo 11 Mission

This web page contains Apollo 11 facts for kids and is a great resource for anyone of any age researching the historic Apollo 11 mission. We’re going to provide you with accurate facts about Apollo 11 from reputable sources. Alongside Apollo 11 facts, you’ll get to see some amazing pictures of the Apollo 11 mission and additional resources on Apollo 11.

The Apollo 11 facts below will help you understand what the Apollo 11 mission was, why Apollo 11 was historic, who was a part of the Apollo 11 mission, when the mission happened and other helpful Apollo 11 facts. We hope the below facts about Apollo 11 are helpful and make researching this historic space mission fun.

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21 Apollo 11 Facts for Kids

  1. Apollo 11 was an historic human spaceflight mission that put the first humans on the moon.
  2. The Apollo 11 mission was operated by NASA, an independent agency of the US Federal Government that runs the civilian space program.
  3. The Apollo 11 mission started on July 16th, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (8:23 AM ET) and ended on July 24th, 1969 at 16:50:35 UTC (11:50 AM ET).
  4. The Apollo 11 mission lasted for 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds.
  5. The Apollo 11 mission had three crew members, and they were Neil A. Armstrong (commander), Michael Collins (command module pilot) and Edwin “Buzz” E. Aldrin Jr. (lunar module pilot).
  6. The spacecrafts used for the Apollo 11 mission were Apollo CSM-107 (Apollo command and service module) and Apollo LM-5 (Apollo Lunar Module).
  7. The Apollo CSM-107 (Apollo command and service module) callsign was Columbia.
  8. The Apollo LM-5 (Apollo Lunar Module) callsign was Eagle.
  9. The callsign for the Apollo LM-5 (Apollo Lunar Module) is where the famous phrase “the eagle has landed” originated.
  10. The rocket used to launch the spacecrafts into space was a Saturn V SA-506 rocket.
  11. The rocket that carried the spacecrafts into space was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, FL.
  12. The Apollo 11 mission was a success and put the first human on the moon.
  13. Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon at exactly 02:56 UTC (9:56 PM ET) on July 21st, 1969.
  14. Neil Armstrong’s famous quote from the mission was “That’s one small [a] step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
  15. The [a] in the above quote from Neil Armstrong is what he claimed he said, but the audible recording of him saying this quote doesn’t include the [a]. There are many reasons why we couldn’t hear it, and its probably due to the fact his quote was transmitted by a radio link over 250,000 miles away.
  16. It’s estimated that 20% of the population (1969) watched humans land and walk on the moon.
  17. The success of the Apollo 11 mission completed a plan by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He was quoted saying he wanted to “land a man on the moon, and return him safely to the Earth”, before the end of the 1960s.
  18. The Space Race between the USA and the USSR is believed to have ended with the success of the Apollo 11 mission.
  19. The entire Apollo program cost the United States $153 billion dollars (2018 USD).
  20. The American flag that was planted on the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts was made by Sears.
  21. A modern-day smartphone has more computing power and memory than the Apollo CSM-107 (Apollo command and service module) and Apollo LM-5 (Apollo Lunar Module).

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