dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (07/20/85)
This date marks two of the most wonderful anniversaries in the short history of space exploration. More -- after this. July 20 On the Moon, and On Mars On this date in 1969 -- and again seven years later -- people on Earth watched and waited for messages from other worlds. In 1969, the world was the moon -- and there were people up there for the first time ever -- the astronauts of Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong became the first person from Earth to walk on the moon. When he and the other astronauts returned to Earth, they left behind a steel plaque that reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." Seven years later, in 1976, attention was focused even farther away from Earth. A spacecraft in orbit around a world in our solar system dropped a landing capsule from hundreds of miles above the surface. The lander plunged downward. A few tens of miles above the surface, the planet's thin air began to slow it down. A huge parachute unfurled -- three rocket engines fired -- and the craft settled gently to the ground -- on Mars. The Viking lander showed us what the surface of Mars looks like. It made it easier to imagine people going there. The manned Apollo missions to the moon -- and the unmanned Vikings on Mars -- both greatly advanced planetary science. But more -- these two missions and dozens more unmannned missions to other worlds in our own solar system have shown brilliantly that once we were truly earthbound -- and now we're not. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin