The mission was extensively covered in the press. Over 53.5 million US households tuned in to watch the Apollo 11 mission across the two weeks it was on TV, making it the most watched TV programming up to that date. An estimated 650 million viewers worldwide watched the first steps on the Moon.[1][2][3]
After their return, the astronauts went on what was called the "Giant Leap" tour, visiting 23 countries in 38 days.[4] Starting in Mexico City, where they donned sombreros and were given a second parade, their tour took them through South America, to Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, England, and Vatican City.[4] After a rest in the U.S. embassy in Rome they went on to Turkey and Africa.[4]In Zaire, Buzz Aldrin leaped over the barricade between him and some entertainers and joined in with their dancing.[4]
Many countries have issued stamps commemorating the mission.
The United States issued aUS$2.40 stamp commemorating the 20th anniversary in 1989, a stamp for the 25th anniversary, and a 33¢ stamp commemorating the 30th anniversary in 1999.[6][7]The 20th anniversary stamp caused some concern when it was issued, as the law forbade living people from being depicted on stamps, and the image was of two astronauts planting a U.S. flag on the Moon.[7]However, it was never actually officially stated by the USPS that the figures were specifically Armstrong and Aldrin, and not just generic astronaut figures.[7]Other stamps issued included a 10¢ stamp on 1969-09-09 showing an astronaut descending a ladder from a lunar module, and theUS$9.95 anniversary stamp issued in 1994.[7]The 1969 stamp art was byPaul Calle, the 1989 art by his son, and the 1994 one by both.[8]
The postal service of Eire issued a commemorative€1 stamp for the 50th anniversary in 2019, but misspelled the word "gealach" (Gaelic for "Moon") as "gaelach" ("Irish"), an accidental transposition during design that was not caught in proof.[9]The USPS issued two 50th anniversary stamps as part of its "Forever" collection, one a photograph of the Moon with the landing site marked, and the other one of Armstrong's pictures of Aldrin.[10]
The astronauts themselves had, before the mission, signed what were called "insurance covers", stamped envelopes that were essentially life insurance in the form of memorabilia that family members could sell off in the events of the astronauts' deaths.[11]This practice would continue through to Apollo 16.[12]
Armstrong and Aldrin also cancelled a commemorative stamp whilst on the surface of the Moon.[13]Originally, they were to have done this reciting pre-scripted dialogue that had been supplied by USPS public relations.[13]But the supplied script was lengthy and stilted, theWashington Post commenting that it would have lasted "for the better part of one orbit of the moon" and resulted in "a veritable barrage of phone calls from a flabbergasted public", and NASA decided that the astronauts had enough to do; so the stamping was without ceremony.[13]
TheUnited States of America acknowledged the success of Apollo 11 with a national day of celebration on Monday, July 21, 1969.[14] All but emergency and essential employees were allowed a paid day off from work, in both government[15] and the private sector. The last time this had happened was thenational day of mourning on Monday, November 25, 1963, to observe thestate funeral ofPresidentJohn F. Kennedy, who had set the political goal to put a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and bring him back to Earth safely.
CBS news coverage of the Apollo 11 landing included several aspects of portrayal. Grumman engineer Scott MacLeod portrayed Neil Armstrong descending from the steps of a full-scale model of theLunar ModuleEagle so that viewers could see what was happening before the live TV broadcast from the Moon began.[19] Tom Sylvester portrayed Buzz Aldrin during the same broadcast.[20]
The 1969 documentary film,Footprints on the Moon by Bill Gibson and Barry Coe, is about the Apollo 11 mission.[21]
Footage of the landing famously introduced viewers toMTV in 1981, and served as its top and bottom of the hour identifier during the cable channel's early years. MTV producersAlan Goodman andFred Seibert used thispublic domain footage to associate MTV with the most famous moment in worldwide television history.[23][24] MTV also pays tribute to the classic ID by handing out astronaut statuettes (or "Moonmen") at its annualVideo Music Awards.
There is a brief mention of the Moon landing in the first season of the originalStar Trek series in the episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday" in early 1967.
The second episode ofFuturama, "The Series Has Landed" (1999) hasFry andLeela take refuge in theEagle (which had since been returned to the Moon) to shelter from the cold night of the Moon. Fry finds one of Neil Armstrong's footprints, which he steps on.
Man on the Moon, a 2006 television opera in one act byJonathan Dove with a libretto byNicholas Wright, relates the story of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and the subsequent problems experienced by Buzz Aldrin.[26]
The 2009 television filmMoonshot depicts the preparation for the Apollo 11 mission.[27]
TheApollo 11 mission is used as part of the main story line in the 2011 filmTransformers: Dark of the Moon. The movie described the mission and the main reason for the Apollo program's existence as a means to investigate an alien landing on thefar side of the Moon.[30] Aldrin has a brief cameo in the film.[31]
In the 2012 filmMen in Black 3, Apollo 11 was used byAgent K to carry the Arc Net (a shield that protects Earth from Alien invasion) to space. The three astronauts see the Men in Black fighting the alien villain from the cockpit, butBuzz Aldrin realizes that if they report this to Mission Control the launch will be aborted. Armstrong nonchalantly responds to Aldrin that "I didn't see anything", andMichael Collins apparently agreed as well.[32]
The last episode of the 2015 television seriesThe Astronaut Wives Club, "Landing", features the Apollo 11 mission.[33]
InReady Jet Go!'s 2016 episode, "Earth Mission to Moon", Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Celery, and Carrot, re-enact the Apollo 11 mission. Jet, Sean, and Sydney portray the Apollo 11 astronauts, and Carrot and Mindy depict the people at Mission Control. In this re-enactment, Sean plays Neil Armstrong.[34]
The Apollo 11 mission appears in the 2016 season 1 episode "Space Race" of the NBC seriesTimeless. In the episode, Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus travel to the day of the mission, July 20, 1969, to stop Garcia Flynn from interfering with the mission. After Flynn's helper, Anthony Bruhl, launches a modern-day virus againstNASA, which prevents the staff from communicating with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Rufus and Lucy get help from MathematicianKatherine Johnson to stop the virus and Flynn before it is too late.[35]
The 2018 filmFirst Man depicts Armstrong and Aldrin as they prepare for, and then accomplish, the Apollo 11 mission.[36]
The 2019 documentaryApollo 11 is a film by Todd Douglas Miller with restored footage of the 1969 event.[37][38]
1969, a 2019 documentary series, devotes its first episode, "Moon Shot", to the Apollo 11 mission.[39]
Chasing the Moon, a July 2019PBS three-night six-hour documentary, directed byRobert Stone, examines the events leading up to the Apollo 11 mission,[42] the mission itself, and its legacy.
The 2024 filmFly Me to the Moon focuses on the Apollo 11 mission, telling the fictional story of a marketing specialist tasked with filming a staged version of the Moon landing should the real one be unsuccessful. The scenes of the set for the staged version are very similar to the Bethpage moonscape from the CBS news portrayal.[19][20]
In theTouhou Project series, the Apollo 11 crew's arrival and subsequent planting of the American flag on the lunar surface (hence 'claiming' it) is interpreted by the inhabitants of the Moon as an invasion, provoking the 'Lunar War'. The lunarians engage in acts of sabotage, by which they succeed in preventing humans from establishing a foothold on the Moon.
Team Fortress 2's Pyromania Update Day 1's blogpost mentions the Apollo 11 mission was delayed by three years when Buzz Aldrin suplexed Neil Armstrong into a pile of folding chairs at an event called 'Astromania'.[46]
Soon after the mission aconspiracy theory arose that thelanding was a hoax, a theory widely discounted by historians and scientists.[47][48][49] It may have gained more popularity after the 1978 filmCapricorn One portrayed a fictional NASA attempt to fake a landing on Mars.[50]
There is a humorous andribaldurban legend that when Armstrong was a child, the wife of a neighbor named Gorsky, when asked by her husband to performoral sex, had ridiculed him by saying "...when the kid next door walks on the Moon!" and then decades later while walking on the Moon, Armstrong supposedly said "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky". In 1995 Armstrong said he first heard the story in California when comedianBuddy Hackett told it as a joke.[51] A short film based on the legend was released in 2011.[52]
A 1970 United States congressional hearing noted that "all countries which had the technical capability of telecasting Apollo 11 live did so." and it also noted that coverage was mostly positive.[53] The Apollo 11 mission received the most news coverage out of all the Apollo missions and the television coverage for following missions dropped over time.[54]
Australia played a major role in broadcasting the Moon landing, with the highest quality footage of the moonwalk being received by Australian stations.
Honeysuckle Creek pictures were used for the first eight minutes of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, as the Parkes station did not have a clear view of the Moon. After eight minutes the Moon was in view for the Parkes station, which took over for the rest of the moonwalk.[55]
All three major American broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC had live coverage of the Moon landing. In the United States, 94 percent of people watching television were tuned into the event.[56]
By the time of theApollo 11 mission in July 1969, theNorth andSouth Islands of New Zealand were each network-capable via microwave link, but the link overCook Strait had not been completed, and there was no link between New Zealand and the outside world. Footage of the Moon landing was recorded on video tape at theAustralian Broadcasting Commission'sABN-2 in Sydney, then rushed by anRNZAFEnglish Electric Canberra to Wellington and WNTV1.[59] To forward this to the South Island, the NZBC positioned one of its firstoutside broadcasting vans to beam the footage to a receiving dish across Cook Strait, from which it was forwarded through the recently commissioned South Island network.
When the Apollo 11 landing occurred somecommunist countries (Soviet Union,North Korea and thePeople's Republic of China) did not broadcast live television footage of it.[60] Although the Soviet Union did not broadcast the news live, it did broadcast footage of the launch four hours later on "the main Soviet evening television news show" discussed the launch and played footage of it.[61] Footage of the launch[62] and the landing was broadcast in the Soviet Union.[63]
Indian electronic media of that era was largely confined to radio. It is reported that the broadcasts were not synchronous with the Apollo 11 flight. For example, the AIR Madras radio service, which was relaying from the Voice of America’s commentary on the Apollo 11 take-off on 16 July, cut off its relay “exactly at 7pm. Whereas the take-off took place only at 7.02pm." The radio service instead switched toThirai Ganam—a film songs programme.[66]
Both Colombian television channels (public, nationalCanal Nacional and private, localTV 9 Bogotá (Teletigre)) broadcast special programmes before, during and after the Moon landing, which was broadcast live during the night of 20 July 1969 (a holiday in Colombia since it wasIndependence Day):
Caracol Radio, Colombia's largest radio network, also aired a series of special programmes with Eucario Bermúdez, José de Recasens and Samuel Ospina.[73]
The special programming aired from 15 to 24 July 1969.[72] Since at the time Colombia lacked aground station to receive satellite signals (it would not have one until 1970 inChocontá), both channels had to resort to their fellowVenezuelantelevision stations.[68] The television signal of the Moon landing would travel from Houston to Bogotá via Cape Canaveral-Caracas-Maracaibo-Jurisdicciones (nearÁbrego, Norte de Santander).[68] Teletigre's owner Consuelo Salgar de Montejo had asked Inravisión permission to install a portable satellite station for then upcomingApollo 12's Moon landing, request denied in August 1969.[74] Some television sets were installed in public venues in cities like Bogotá[75][76] for Colombians to watch the historic event.[68]
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