President Richard Nixon, whose voice was transmitted from the White House, and placed a plaque on the ground that stated:

While on the surface, the astronauts set up several experiments, collected samples of lunar soil and rock to bring home, erected a United States flag and took core samples from the crust. The Eagle has landed.'ДЄpollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin poses with the American flag on the surface of the moon in July 1969. Armstrong notified Houston with the historic words, 'Houston, Tranquility Base here. The lunar module touched down on the moon's Sea of Tranquility, a large basaltic region, at 4:17 p.m. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin entered the lunar module, nicknamed the 'Eagle' and separated from the Command Service ModuleВ - the 'Columbia' - and headed toward the lunar surface. While in flight, the crew made two televised broadcasts from the interior of the ship, and a third transmission as they drew closer to the moon, revealing the lunar surface and the intended approach path. This helped the planners narrow down the initial 30 site candidates to three.ДЄpollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:32 a.m. They examined the best high-resolution photographs available at the time, from the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor programs, and considered the number of craters and boulders, cliffs and hills at each prospective landing site, and how easy it would be for the astronauts to land given their fuel and time requirements. Mission planners at NASA studied the lunar surface for two years, searching for the best place to make the historic landing. (Image credit: NASA) From Earth to the moon Apollo 11 crew: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin.

Fist of first men