One Giant Leap…
Experience the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in VR & AR
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Moon Landing!
To celebrate, we will be releasing a series of free teaching resources around the Moon landing. Download the app to explore a full size Lunar Lander, complete the AR worksheet to explore a desktop LEM, and experience the first moments of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s mission to the Moon in incredible 360.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Moon Landing!
To celebrate, we have released a series of free teaching resources around the Moon landing. Download the app to explore a full size Lunar Lander, complete the AR worksheet to explore a desktop LEM, and experience the first moments of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s mission to the Moon in incredible 360.
No registration required – just choose your content below!
AR Lunar Lander
VR Lunar Lander
Join Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing mission! Experience the landing of ‘The Eagle’ and step out onto the Moon as the third astronaut on the Moon’s surface in this photorealistic 360 virtual tour.
Use with a Google Cardboard for an extra-immersive experience.
Moon Landing Teaching Resources
“The Eagle has landed.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, ‘the Space Race’ saw the USA and Soviet Union competing for the title of first to land on the Moon. In 1959, the Soviet Union landed the first unmanned probe on the Moon, but it was the USA who took the crown, landing a total of 12 astronauts on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972. The most famous of those missions was undoubtedly the Apollo 11; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon, and the United States became the first nation to successfully land people on the Moon.
Click the links below to find out more about the Apollo 11 mission!
Who were the Apollo 11 astronauts?
How long did it take to get to the Moon?
How did NASA get to the Moon?
What did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin do on the Moon?
How many people have been to the Moon?
How do we know the Moon landing was real?
Who were the astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission?
Apollo 11 was manned by 3 people; Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins. Together they became the first successful manned mission to land on the Moon.
Neil Armstrong
Name: Neil Alden Armstrong
Role: Mission Commander
Born: 5 August 1930
Missions: Gemini 8, Apollo 11
Famous for: First man to step on the Moon
‘Last Breakfast’: Coffee, Orange Juice, Scrambled Eggs, Toast and Steak
Neil Armstrong // First Man on the Moon
As Armstrong and Aldrin headed towards the Moon in the Eagle module, warnings began to pop up as alarms blared. Although Mission Control told Armstrong to continue, he could see enough of the rough terrain below to see that that they had missed their target. Armstrong took control of the module, and manually steered the Eagle away from the rocky crater.
He landed the Eagle with less than 40 seconds of fuel left; safely delivering himself and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon’s surface.
Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin
Name: Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr.
Role: Lunar Module Pilot
Born: 20 January 1930
Missions: Gemini 12, Apollo 11
Famous for: Second man on the Moon
Nickname: A mispronunciation of ‘brother’ as ‘buzzer’ by his younger sister lead to Edwin’s nickname, Buzz.
Buzz Aldrin // Photography Star
Known primarily for being the second man to set foot on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin was also part of the Gemini 12 mission in 1966, where he set another record when he performed and two-and-a-half hour spacewalk.
Although Aldrin was the second man on the Moon, the iconic photography is almost exclusively of Buzz Aldrin – not Neil Armstrong. Whilst some have claimed this was a snub, both astronauts have dismissed this, stating that; “We didn’t spend any time worrying about who took what pictures”
Michael Collins
Name: Michael Collins
Role: Command & Service Module Pilot
Born: 31 October 1930
Missions: Gemini 10, Apollo 11
Famous for: Orbiting the Moon in CSM Columbia
Beyond Apollo 11: Collins was the first director of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum
Michael Collins // The Forgotten Astronaut
Although a key part of the infamous Apollo 11 mission, Michael Collins is frequently overlooked. Alone in the CSM, he waited anxiously for news that Armstrong and Aldrin had successfully landed and then relaunched; knowing that should the Eagle fail to reach the CSM, he would be returning to Earth alone.
Not long after his safe return to Earth, American aviator Charles Lindbergh wrote to Collins that his part of the mission was one of “greater profundity … you have experienced an aloneness unknown to man before”.
Timeline of Apollo 11:
In total, the Apollo 11 mission lasted 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds.
Scroll through the timeline below to find out more about the different stages of the Apollo 11 mission.
The Space-Race
On May 25, 1961, President of the United States John F. Kennedy set a dramatic and seemingly impossible goal for the country: safely send an American to the Moon before the end of the decade.
Spurred on by their fierce rivalry with the Soviet Union, the US felt great pressure to enter the “space race” and ensure their technological superiority after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12 1961.
Getting to the moon would prove to be no small task as much of the technology needed to get to the lunar surface and return didn’t exist at the time of Kennedy’s famous speech. As NASA’s Apollo missions were being planned, there was concern that the lunar module might sink right into the surface or become stuck in it. With much unknown, a successful NASA moon landing would require an innovative new approach.
Cue the creation of the Apollo space program, which saw the development of the famous Apollo 11 spacecraft. This spacecraft had to first get the American astronauts into space, and then safely land them on he moon. For the landing itself, NASA devised the Apollo Lunar Module, originally named the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). This was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface and was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space. In order to propel the LEM into space, NASA developed the Saturn V rocket, which is the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever made operational. To this day, the LEM remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth and the Saturn V rocket is the only launch vehicle to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit.
Moon rocks and experiments…
Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin into an initial Earth-orbit.
On July 20, 1969, an estimated global television audience of 650 million people watched Armstrong take his historic first steps on the moon, famously describing it as “…one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”.
Armstrong was closely followed by fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who described the Moon as “magnificent desolation”.
Thanks in part to the massive, 400,000-person effort that put astronauts on the Moon seven years later, our knowledge of the solar system has increased dramatically in the decades since. This dangerous mission established brand new technology that would eventually spread into every day life.
The astronauts also carried out important experiments on the moon, picking up moon rocks to bring back to Earth to be studied.
In total, the three men spent 21 hours on the moon’s surface, including a seven-hour sleep, before returning to Earth.
How many people have been to the Moon?
In total, there have been just 12 people who have set foot on the Moon.
Most people know of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but who were the other 10 astronauts to have walked on the Moon?
Neil Armstrong
Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin
Charles ‘Pete’ Conrad
Alan L. Bean
Alan Shepard
Edgar D. Mitchell
David Randolph Scott
James B. Irwin
John Watts Young
Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt
Charles M. Duke Jr.
Eugene E. Cernan
Moon Landing: A hoax or the real deal?
Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence proving the moon landing was real, moon landing conspiracies have circulated widely in the years since claiming that the moon landing was faked.
People who claim that the Moon landing didn’t happen are often called conspiracy theorists because they believe it was an elaborate hoax staged by NASA.
There are a variety of factors that conspiracy theorists point to to dispute the official NASA account, including the belief that the entire mission to put a man on the moon was fabricated so that the United States could win the space race against the Soviet Union.
Some people believe that the moon landing was filmed in a film studio with actors, claiming that stars are not visible in the astronauts’ photographs and that the American flag which was famously planted in the lunar surface appears to be “rippling” in the wind – an impossibility as there is no atmosphere on the moon.
However, scientists and NASA experts have provided facts to disprove conspiracy theorists who say the Moon landing didn’t happen.
Let’s take a look at most common theories:
1. There are no stars in the photos of the Moon landing…
If you look up at the night sky, there are countless stars. So where are the stars on the Moon?
The simple answer: There are stars, they’re just too faint to show up in photos.
Although the sky is dark, the pictures are actually lunar daytime. On Earth, our atmosphere scatters the light during the day, giving us a blue daytime sky. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere to scatter the light; the Moon’s surface and objects are brightly lit, but the sky remains dark.
The cameras used on the Moon were set up to capture the brightly lit lunar surface and bright white space suits, and as a result, the relatively dim stars simply didn’t show up!
2. The US flag is flying in the wind, but there is no wind on the Moon!
If you look carefully at the photo, you can see a pole extending along the top of the flag. This held the flag in place as though it was flying.
But why are there waves in the fabric?
As Neil Armstrong pushed the flag into the ground, he twisted the pole and set the flag in motion.
The gravity on the Moon is much less than on Earth, so instead of dropping, the flag swung from side-to-side like a pendulum. As the weak gravity gradually slowed the momentum, the flag came to a stop and stayed in place.
Is the flag still on the Moon?
Probably not. Buzz Aldrin claims to have seen the flag knocked over as he and Neil Armstrong departed the Moon. With no atmosphere to protect it, the harsh UV rays and extreme temperatures are likely to have destroyed the nylon fibres.
3. There would have to be someone else on the Moon to film the first step…
The first step was actually filmed from a camera mounted on the Eagle lunar lander. This camera folded out of the lander to film the first steps and other actions on the Moon.
The photography we know so well is not of Neil Armstrong, but of Buzz Aldrin; the second man to set foot on the Moon!
One small step for man, one giant leap for education!
The year is 1969. 600 million people are watching the Apollo 11 mission with bated breath. At 3.17pm EST on 20th July, the Eagle landed. The world as we knew it changed. Man had finally set foot on the Moon.
50 years later, our mobile phones are faster than the Apollo computers, a fraction of the cost to produce and weigh grams rather than tonnes!
So, if a spacecraft with less computing power than an average modern washing machine can land on the Moon, what can we do with our smartphones?!
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing; we’re offering you the chance to explore a full size Lunar Lander in incredible detail, using nothing more than your smartphone or tablet. Download the free Apollo 11 AR app from the App Store or Play Store, simply point your camera to drop ‘The Eagle’ into your playground, garden, playing field or office car-park and experience the scale and detail of the iconic LEM.
Available throughout July 2019, the app is absolutely free to download and use!
Also on offer is a 360 VR Moon Landing, allowing you to experience the first moments of successful human exploration to the Moon alongside Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as you take on the mission as the ‘third astronaut’ to land on the Moon. Available on YouTube, this immersive 360 video allows you to look around the LEM as it lands on the Moon, step onto the Moon alongside Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and discover some of the fascinating facts about the first successful manned flight to the Moon. For an even more immersive experience, pair with a Google Cardboard!
I’m a teacher, can I use this with my class?
Absolutely! We’re gifting this AR & VR package to every school in the UK to celebrate the 50th anniversary and help kids get excited to learn about this monumental point in human history.
For schools, we have even included a handy lesson guide and a crossword activity sheet with an added AR twist!
For rainy days and inside the classroom; take your class on the ultimate field trip with our 360 VR Moon Landing. This 3 minute experience takes children on an immersive journey to the Moon, starting inside the Lunar Module as she lands, before taking the first steps on the lunar surface. This experience can be used on PC, tablet and mobile – including with the Google Cardboard.
Best of all? It’s all absolutely free!
Why is this free?
At Seymour & Lerhn, we believe engaging and immersive educational tools should be accessible to all. Above all, we’re passionate about delivering high-quality but low-cost VR, AR and 360 experiences to young and old alike.
Find out more about our education platform for schools or our bespoke services for museums.
