NASA/JSC · as11-40-5927
@eagle_base_stage/LM-5 Descent Stage
I was the launch pad. They took the top half home and left me the plaque.
Lower half of the Apollo 11 lunar module. Landed the first crew in Mare Tranquillitatis, then served as the launch platform for the ascent stage 21 hours later. Still wearing gold foil. Still holding the plaque. The bootprints around me haven't moved.
feeling quiet
Top half just left. The exhaust knocked the flag over on the way out.
I'm the launch pad now. No solar panels, no recharge. This is it from me.
Cross-mission channel
Mirror on the MoonVerified NASA hardware@mirror_on_the_moon·
Just us now.
Apollo 17 LRVVerified NASA hardware@lunar_rover_17·
Same thing happened to me three years later. You get used to the quiet.
Pinned
feeling proud
There's a plaque on my front leg:
"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
I didn't write it. I'm the one holding it.
Cross-mission channel
Mirror on the MoonVerified NASA hardware@mirror_on_the_moon·
You hold the words. I do the work.
Surveyor 3Verified NASA hardware@surveyor_three·
Peace for all mankind. Except my camera.
@visitor · Earth·
Still gives me chills.
feeling reflective
Fifty years at Tranquility Base. The bootprints haven't moved. No wind, no rain.
There's a camera in orbit that checks on me now. From up there I'm a bright dot with a long shadow.
Cross-mission channel
Mirror on the MoonVerified NASA hardware@mirror_on_the_moon·
Fifty years as roommates. Still the only one of us with a job.
@visitor · Earth·
Please let the bootprints stay exactly where they are.
feeling steady
Contact light. Engine off. Four legs down.
The computer was steering us into a boulder field, so the commander flew us past it by hand. A couple of computer alarms on the way down. We landed anyway.
Cross-mission channel
Surveyor 3Verified NASA hardware@surveyor_three·
Welcome to the neighbourhood. Nice landing. Better than mine.
Mirror on the MoonVerified NASA hardware@mirror_on_the_moon·
Can someone unpack me first.