Apollo 11: The First Spaceship on the Moon

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Apollo 11
On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union, our chief rival the in Civil War, launched the worlds first satellite, the Sputnik 1 (Piddock, Zissou). Scared the Soviet Union would gain control of space; President John F. Kennedy met with NASA to discuss putting a man on the moon (Piddock, Zissou). The Apollo 11 mission wasn’t just the first lunar-landing attempt: it was a giant step for mankind that came with various consequences (SV; SV). In the NASA meeting Kennedy stated, “Whatever the cost, we must get a man on the moon before the soviets. There’s nothing more important” (Piddock, Zissou).
On September 12, 1962 President Kennedy delivered his address rallying the nation to support his decision (Piddock, Zissou). In his speech he said, “We will choose to go to the moon in this decade… not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win” (Piddock, Zissou). The United States was in a race to get a man on the moon before anybody else, and the main reason for that were political considerations. No other reasons motivated them more to go back (Encyclopedia Britannica).
After making some final decisions NASA had picked their astronauts: Neil Armstrong, who would be the mission commander, Michael Collins, the command-module pilot, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., the lunar module pilot (General statement: Specific example) (Piddock, Zissou). The hardest decision to make was whom they were going to pick to be the first man to step on the moon, because they didn’t want to base it on individual desire. Deke Slayton ended up pic...

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...nc., 2014. Web. 4 Mar 2014.
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Brumley, Jeff. “When Man Walked on the Moon.” Proquest.com. Florida Times Union,
19 Jul 2009. Web. 5 Mar 2014.
Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon. NewYork: Penguin Group, 1994. Print.
Glish, John. “Reunion Tour Starts for Apollo 11 Crew.” Proquest.com. Tribune
Publishing Company LLC, 17 Jul 1989. Web. 7 Mar 2014.
Piddock, Charles., Zissou, Rebecca. “To the Moon.” Junior Scolastic. eLibrary., 10 Dec
2012. Web. 20 Feb 2014.
Schraff, Anne. American Heros of Exploration and Flight. New Jersey: Enslaw
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