Two Men Walked on the Moon Long Ago

July 19th, 2024

On Saturday, we remember an important day from 55 years ago. On July 20, 1969, two American astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon for the first time. This weekend, the night sky will have a full moon to celebrate this special memory. Buzz Aldrin, who is now 94 years old and the only one of the first moonwalkers still alive, will go to a big party at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Lots of people will remember the famous words Neil Armstrong said when he first stepped on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." There are many ways to learn about this moon landing. Some museums are having special events. People can also watch a new movie called “Fly Me to the Moon.” If you can't go to these events, you can also see information about Apollo 11 on a special website by the Smithsonian National Air and Space/ Museum. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent a little over two hours on the moon before they went back to their space module and joined their friend Michael Collins, who was waiting in space. People were very excited when the spaceship came back to Earth and landed in the water. The spacesuits the astronauts wore and the capsule they used are now in a museum. There are also pieces of the moon, called moon rocks, that the astronauts brought back. These rocks are kept in a special place where scientists study them. NASA, which is America's space agency, plans to send more astronauts around the moon soon. This won't be until after 2025. They want to learn more about the moon and maybe even have people live there one day. We learn about space to help us understand more about our world and maybe find new places where people can go.

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💭 Discussion Questions

. What are museums doing to celebrate the first moon landing?

. When do NASA plan to send astronauts around the moon again?

. What did the astronauts bring back from the moon?

📖 Vocabulary

🌐 Cultural context

This article is from the United States and talks about the Apollo 11 lunar mission, where American astronauts first landed on the moon. The moon landing is a significant historical event in the US.

🧠 Further reading

Leisure Suit Larry

Leisure Suit Larry is a series of funny video games made for adults. It was created by a person named Al Lowe. The games are about a man called Larry Laffer. Larry is not young, does not have much hair, and he likes to wear special suits called leisure suits. Larry tries to meet young ladies, but he usually does not do well. He visits fancy places like big hotels, boats, beaches, and casinos. These games are very different because they are funny, they copy other things in a funny way, and they talk about romantic dreams. Al Lowe made the first six Leisure Suit Larry games from 1987 to 1996. People liked these games a lot. Even after Al Lowe stopped making them, new games were made by other people. By 2011, they sold 10 million copies. Ken Williams, who helped start the company Sierra that made the games, says Leisure Suit Larry is very famous. A long time ago, Al Lowe made different kinds of games. He wanted to make something new and funny. He used new technology to make games with stories where players could make choices. The idea for Leisure Suit Larry came from an older game that Al Lowe thought was not modern anymore. He made it more fun and that's how Leisure (short for Leisure Suit Larry) was started.

Moon

The Moon is a big rock that moves around the Earth. It is the only natural thing that goes around our planet. It is quite far from us, and it is as wide as the country of Australia. The Moon always shows the same side to the Earth because it turns at the same time as it moves around us. The pull from the Moon makes the sea move up and down, which we call tides. The Moon is smaller than the Earth, but it is the biggest one when compared to the size of its planet. It does not have water, air, or a magnetic field like Earth does. The Moon was made a long time ago, just after the Earth was made. It came from a big crash in space. The Moon's ground has dust, mountains, and big holes called craters. Some places on the Moon are dark and flat because old volcanoes made lava there. The Sun always lights up the Moon, but we see the Moon change shape in the night sky. The Moon is very bright when we look at it at night. This is because it is big and close to us and because it reflects light from the Sun.

Space colonization

People have thought about living in outer space. They suggest we could build homes and places to work that go beyond our planet Earth. While nobody has made a home in space that lasts a long time, people still think about what it would be like to use space for living and working. There are rules made by countries around the world that say nobody can own a piece of outer space. These rules also want everyone to share space and keep it peaceful. Some good reasons to live in space include making sure humans survive big dangers to our planet and finding new things we can use. But, there are also reasons not to live in space. Some people worry that only very rich or powerful groups will benefit. Others say it will cost too much money that we could use to fix problems on Earth. Building homes in space would be very difficult and expensive, and it could cause new problems for people and countries.