I sit anxiously within our aircraft, Apollo 11. It has been two days already, and our arrival at the moon is fast approaching. Though I have not been nervous until this point. There is no reason to be nervous, I think. After all, they chose me, of all people, to be the Command Pilot of this mission.
This is my first time going to the moon. In fact, it is the first time anyone has gone to the moon. Within my head resonates the promise that President Kennedy had made to Americans in 1960: that the US would send a man to the moon and return him to earth before the end of the decade. I look around the spacecraft. I see the wings and propeller from the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk. I see my friends Buzz and Michael, who are also anxious. One doesn’t land on the moon every day.

Looking out into space, I see the pallid, uneven surface of the moon, which grows closer with each second that passes. I can’t believe we’re actually doing this, I think to myself. As we enter the moon’s orbit, Buzz and I get into the Eagle module, which then detaches from the main body, Columbia. We stay in the moon’s orbit for a while before making the 300-mile descent to the moon’s pale-white surface. Rapidly descending to our proposed landing spot, I realize there is a problem. The landing spot is strewn with boulders the size of small cars. I know what this means.

I take manual control of the vessel to find a safe place to land. This reminded me of my mission on Gemini 8, when my crew began spinning out of control and I had to manually fix the problem. I confidently fly four miles farther than the proposed landing spot, to the Sea of Tranquility. I do not understand why the alarm is going off, but it begins to make me nervous. I try to calm myself. I’ve flown over 200 models of aircraft. This is just another model. Only once I land the vessel do I understand the problem: there are only 25 seconds of fuel left.
I immediately call the Houston space center. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

“Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again,” they respond.

I’m on the moon! I think to myself excitedly. All my life has led up to this. I think back to the days when I rode with my dad in a Tin Goose airplane. I think back to when I started flying at age 14. It surely wasn’t a coincidence that I had gotten my pilot’s license before getting my driver’s license. I had been pulled out of Purdue University to serve in the Korean War. I had flown 78 missions in that war, all of which have helped me get to where I am today.

I sit with Buzz in the Eagle module, while we eat freeze-dried turkey legs and prepare ourselves, both physically and mentally, for our moonwalk. This takes us 7 hours. Finally, I put on my space helmet, open the latch, and swing open the door. Before me expands the ashen surface of the moon, which contrasts sharply with the tenebrous nothingness of space that surrounds us. The absolute silence around me is almost too much to handle. As I step out onto the nine-rung ladder, I feel the incredible lightness of my body. Despite the heavy space suit I wear, I feel lighter than I have ever felt. I turn on the video camera, which will stream live footage back to Earth. I could only have guessed that over half a billion pairs of eyes would soon watch my every move. There is a mix of feelings within me. I feel nervous, yet ecstatic at the same time. It is hard to think that I will be such a huge part of history. I begin to climb down the rungs of the ladder, stopping on the last one. This is it, I think. With that, I let myself drop onto the moon’s surface.

In my head I can hear the millions of voices back on earth, cheering at our accomplishments. This is a huge accomplishment. “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” I declare proudly.

Buzz comes out and remains on the rungs. “Now I want to partially close the latch, making sure not to lock it on the way out,” he says.

“A good thought,” I respond, smiling.

The silence of the Sea of Tranquility is soon shattered as I receive a call from President Nixon.

“Hello, Neil and Buzz,” he says. “I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office of the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can’t tell you how proud we are of what you have done.”

I look down at the moon’s surface. It is a fine whitish-gray powder that retains the very shape of my footprint. Stepping forward, I feel surprisingly light. Buzz and I hop around the surface for a little while before collecting samples from the moon’s surface. For 2 hours and 48 minutes we travel around the moon’s surface. During this time, we collect rocks and soil samples, plant the US flag, and insert a plaque: “We came in peace for all mankind.” When we finally finish, we re-board the Eagle. We collected 46 pounds of moon rocks.
“We have to lighten the load to make room for all these rocks,” I say to Buzz.
Together, Buzz and I throw out excess materials like backpacks, moon boots, urine bags, and a camera.

As I prepare to take off from the moon’s surface, I see that quite a bit of fuel remains. There had been a false alarm. I take off from the surface and join up with the Columbia module in the moon’s orbit, then reattaching the two modules. We then leave the moon’s orbit and head back to earth. I am absolutely thrilled. I look over at a calendar. July 20, 1969, I think. That’s the day I made history. This experience has shown me that anything is possible. After all, who would have thought that a farm boy from Wapakoneta, Ohio would be the first man to walk on the moon?