International Moon Day 2022: Why Is It Celebrated On July 20
International Moon Day 2022: On July 20, 1969, US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to reach the lunar planet.
INTERNATIONAL MOON DAY 2022: July 20 this year will mark the inaugural celebration of International Moon Day. The United Nations General Assembly, on December 9, 2021, recognised the proposal submitted by the Moon Village Association and several other groups within the organisation. The application was submitted to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
The day will celebrate one of the most memorable moments in human history. On July 20, 1969, US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to reach the lunar planet. It was the first time that a human had set foot on the Moon’s surface.
Upon landing on the surface, with millions of eyes watching history being written, Neil Armstrong hopped down the ladder and said, “That is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Apollo 11 astronauts used the lunar module called Eagle to reach the surface.
Since that day, Moon exploration efforts started taking shape and the lunar planet became the destination for countless missions. The landing of July 20, 1969, is a milestone in space exploration.
The International Moon Day will be held annually and will aim at educating and promoting the sustainable utilisation and exploration of the Moon and the need for regulations of activities on and around the lunar planet. These events will be organised with a top-down (inaugural celebrations) and bottom-up approach (other global events) on an international level.
Not only will these events target the young generation and the general public through educational activities, they will also cover space communities such as NGOs, government agencies, and laboratories, among other institutions. The International Moon Day, backed by UNOOSA, will also aim at promoting international cooperation regarding the usage of outer space and the affairs related to it will be dealt with by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).
HISTORY OF NATIONAL MOON DAY
American astronauts Neil Armstrong, and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the first humans in history to land on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The grand Apollo 11 mission took place eight years after the national goal announcement by President John F. Kennedy to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s.
The idea for the mission to send astronauts to the moon started when President Kennedy appealed to a special joint session of Congress in 1961, stating “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
At the time of Kennedy’s proposal, the United States was still head-to-head with the Soviet Union in advancements in space exploration and, since it was during the time of the Cold War, the proposal was welcomed. The first unmanned Apollo mission was initiated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, after five years of effort and hard work by their international team of engineers and scientists. The first mission served as a testing phase for the structural resilience of the launch spacecraft vehicle.
At 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the whole world witnessed Apollo 11 take off from Kennedy Space Center with three astronauts on board. Neil Armstrong was the commander of the mission. The spacecraft entered the lunar orbit after three days, on July 19. The lunar module, Eagle, disengaged from the main command module the next day, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin. When Eagle touched the lunar surface, Armstrong radioed his historical message to Mission Control in Houston, Texas: “The Eagle has landed.”
At 10:39 P.M., Armstrong exited the lunar module and made his way down its ladder. His progress was being recorded by a television camera attached to the module, transmitting signals back to Earth, where the world was watching with bated breath.
At 10:56 P.M., Armstrong stepped on the moon’s powdery surface, and spoke his iconic words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
RESOURCES -
https://nationaltoday.com/national-moon-day/
