First Explorers on the Moon

This article was originally published in the December 1969 issue of the magazine.

Two thousand feet above the Sea of Tranquillity, the little silver, black, and gold space bug named Eagle braked itself with a tail of flame as it plunged toward the face of the moon. The two men inside standing like the motorman in a 19th—century trolley car-strained to see their goal. Guided by numbers from their computer, they sighted through a grid on one triangular window.

Suddenly they spotted the onrushing target. What they saw set the adrenalin pumping and the blood racing. Instead of the level, obstacle-free plain called for in the Apollo 11 flight plan, they were aimed for a sharply etched crater, 600 feet across and surrounded by heavy boulders.