On May 20, 1969, the thirty-story-high Apollo 11-Saturn V spaceship trundled from Cape Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building to Pad 39A for its final inspection and countdown. The nearly 1 million spectators who began gathering at Cape Kennedy for launch on July 16, 1969, were kept at least 3.5 miles away from the pad because, in an explosion, hundred-pound chunks of shrapnel would be hurled in a 3-mile radius. Finally, at 9:32 a.m., Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins lifted into the skies on the greatest adventure in modern history; the first trip to the moon.
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