July 20, 1969, 10:17 pm Italian time, the Lunar Module Aquila touches the surface of the Moon . The Italians follow the historical direct of Rai with Tito Stagno and Ruggero Orlando who discussing among themselves in the famous diatribe "has touched" (Stagno), "has not touched" (Orlando), they do not hear Neil Armstrong who communicates "Houston, here Base of Tranquility. The Eagle has landed ”.
The technical problem that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to face in the minutes before the moon landing is not perceived from the television studio. Due to an overload of the small memory of the on-board computer, the navigation program incorrectly calculates the trajectory and Neil Armstrong takes the commands of the lunar module and finds a suitable place for landing. Only 25 seconds of fuel remain in the LEM tank.
In the middle of the night in Italy, at 4:56 am, Neil Armstrong descends the ladder and places his foot on the Moon, communicating to humanity: “ This is a small step for a man, but a great leap for humanity ”.
53 years later, we are still amazed by NASA's feat, with 6 missions that landed on the moon taking 12 men into what Aldrin called " a magnificent desolation ".
To retrace these historic events, the Planetarium of the Unione Sarda has organized three events. The first two take place on Wednesday 20 July at the headquarters in Piazza Unione Sarda, with the "Astronaut Laboratory for a day" for children and families at 18:00. The second appointment will be at 20:30, with the vision of the sky of that magical night, where those moments will be retraced accompanied by the music of great authors who were inspired by that journey, from Pink Floyd to David Bowie and others.
Thursday 21 at 19:00 at the Archaeological Museum of Teti, the astrophysicist Manuel Floris will talk about the race to the Moon, in an event organized by the Astroturismo Sardegna network. Once out in the open, at 22:00 a telescope will be aimed at the stars to travel in space and time, to discover stars, nebulae and clusters of stars. For any information just contact the number 0706013552.
