The Times reports the start of the astronauts’ return journey.
New York City welcomes the Apollo 11 crew home with a ticker tape parade down Broadway and Park Avenue.
Next stop, the stars
This astonishing achievement inspired a whole generation with the technical and creative possibilities of space. The Apollo program brought 382 kg (842 lb) of lunar rocks and soil back to Earth, transforming our understanding of the Moon’s geology and history. The program funded the construction of the Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Huge advances in avionics, telecommunications, and computers were made as part of the overall Apollo program.
The Apollo 11 Command Module on display at Cape Canaveral.
Politically, the Space Race was won – decisively – by America. JFK had been assassinated six years before his dream became reality but the Soviets had been beaten, as he had wanted.
Apollo 11 was the first in a flurry of launches. Apollo 12 became the second successful mission to the Moon just four months later, in November 1969. Apollo 13 famously had a malfunction on the journey out and had to return home without touching down on the Moon. Apollos 14 to 16 all landed safely on the lunar surface. In December 1972, Apollo 17 was the sixth – and final – manned spacecraft to make a Moon landing. In total, twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon. No humans have gone further than Earth orbit in the decades since.
One of the most unexpected glories of the expedition was actually an image of home: the extraordinarily delicate beauty of the blue Earth as seen from our natural satellite. It was a sight that few had imagined but which utterly transfixed all astronauts who witnessed it.
President Barack Obama welcomes Apollo 11 astronauts Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin (left side) and Neil Armstrong’s widow, Carol (seated third from the right), to the Oval Office on 22 July 2014. Also seated are NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Patricia Falcone, Director for National Security and International Affairs.
The expeditions of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott
“I may say that this is the greatest factor – the way in which the expedition is equipped – the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.
From The South Pole, by Roald Amundsen
WHEN
1910–12
ENDEAVOUR
Becoming the first human to reach the South Pole.
HARDSHIPS & DANGERS
Extreme cold, frostbite, hunger, exhaustion.
LEGACY
Roald Amundsen was the first man to reach both poles. He also made the first voyage through the Northwest Passage. Robert Scott reached the South Pole after Amundsen and died on the return journey. But his stoicism in the face of certain death continues to earn respect.
Until colour photography was invented, only whalers and explorers were able to fully appreciate the beauty of Antarctica.
The search party had found the tent. Steeling themselves, the men looked inside. As they expected, the emaciated bodies of Captain Robert Scott and two companions lay frozen solid, shrouded in drifting snow. Scott’s sleeping bag was thrown open and his coat was unfastened; he had hastened the end. Somewhere outside, forever lost in the merciless Antarctic, were two other men who had also perished. Such was the price they paid for coming second in the race to the South Pole.
Natural born heroes
When Robert Falcon Scott left Britain on his 1911 attempt to be first to reach the South Pole, he was already a national hero. He had commanded the Discovery Expedition of 1901–04, which included another great explorer, Ernest Shackleton. Scott and Shackleton had walked further south than anyone else in history: they got to within 850 km (530 miles) of the pole.
While Scott was making his record-breaking South Pole approach, Roald Amundsen was making a pioneering polar trip at the opposite end of the world. Born in 1872 into a Norwegian family of maritime merchants, Amundsen had been forced by his mother to study medicine. When she died he packed up his books and, aged 21, left university for a life of adventure. Amundsen led the 1903–06 expedition that was the first to traverse the Northwest Passage. On this trip he also learned some Inuit skills that would stand him in good stead; how to use sled dogs to transport stores and how much better animal skins were at insulating in the cold and wet than the heavy, woollen parkas typically used by European explorers.
An extract of a German map from the period showing the explorers’ routes to the South Pole.
Unfinished business
In 1909, Scott heard that his former fellow explorer Shackleton had got to within 180 km (112 miles) of the Pole on his Nimrod Expedition before being forced to turn back. Scott was aware that other polar ventures were being planned and, gripped by ‘Polemania’, he duly announced that he would lead another Antarctic expedition. Hopes were now high that a Briton would be the first to stand on the bottom of the world, and Scott did not want to disappoint. His expedition sailed from Cardiff in June 1910 on the former whaling ship, Terra Nova on a seven-month journey to Antarctica.
While Scott was looking south, Amundsen had his sights set on the North Pole. However, in 1909, he heard that two separate American expeditions, led by Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, had both attained this goal, so he decided instead to head for Antarctica. (Peary and Cook are both now generally considered not to have attained the North Pole.) Amundsen and his crew left Oslo on the Fram (the ship previously used by Fridtjof Nansen, see page 188), heading south on 3 June 1910.
When Scott got to Melbourne, Australia, he found a telegram from Amundsen, announcing that he was ‘proceeding south’. The Terra Nova stopped for supplies in New Zealand and then turned south in late November. Scott now had a run of what he termed ‘sheer bad luck’. A heavy storm killed two ponies and a dog, and also caused 10,200 kg (10 tons) of coal and 300 l (65 gallons) of petrol to be lost overboard. The Terra Nova then got stuck in the pack ice for twenty days before managing to break clear.
The Fram’s run south in the meantime, had been relatively smooth.
A recent satellite image from a similar vantage point. The Ross Ice Shelf, Transantarctic Mountains (top half) and Ross Sea (lower half) are clearly visible.
A historical Bird’seye view map of Amundsen’s South Pole Expedition. Scott’s route can also be seen (with added annotations) as