Eight years after US President J. F. Kenneny announced the national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, the Apollo 11 lunar module carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, landed on the Moon at 8.17 p.m. GMT (4.17 p.m. EDT). At 2.39 a.m. GMT (10.39 p.m. EDT) Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module and 17 mins. later became the first person to set foot on the Moon, uttering the now famous words as he did so, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Adrin joined him a few minutes later. The pair spent some three hours on the surface, planting the US flag, spoke with then President Richard Nixon, and ran some tests. The astronauts left the Moon after spending the night and were home on Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on the afternoon of 24 July.
The event has no special significance for the Christian faith except that it made the observance of the Eucharist the first meal to be eated on the Moon. The astronaut Aldrin was a Presbyterian elder, and he decided to pack with him the elements so that he would observe the rite on the Moon. Once the lunar module had landed and they were waiting for the preparation for the next phase of their mission to begin, Adrin took over the communication system and spoke to the ground crew back at NASA saying, "I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way." Afterwards, he celebrated his private communion while Armstrong looked on but not participating. In his memoir written in 2010, however, Aldrin wrote that he wordered if he had done the right thing: "We had come to space in the name of all mankind—be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists. But at the time I could think of no better way to acknowledge the Apollo 11 experience than by giving thanks to God."
Joe Carter, "9 Things You Should Know About the Communion Service on the Moon," The Gospel Coalition. July 17, 2019.
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