“The Eagle has landed!” —Apollo II Commander Neil A. Armstrong
“A magnificent desolation!” — Air Force Colonel Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr.
July 20, 1969
That afternoon in mid-July,
Two pilgrims watched from distant space
The moon ballooning in the sky.
They rose to meet it face-to-face.
Their spidery spaceship, Eagle, dropped
Down gently on the lunar sand.
And when the module’s engines stopped,
Rapt silence fell across the land.
The first man down the ladder, Neil,
Spoke words that we remember now—
“One small step…” It made us feel
As if we were there too, somehow.
When Neil planted the flag and Buzz
Collected lunar rocks and dust,
They hopped like kangaroos because
Of gravity. Or wanderlust?
A quarter million miles away,
One small blue planet watched in awe.
And no one who was there that day
Will soon forget the sight they saw.
A) Please read about Apollo 11 and the first moon landing on 20 July, 1969.
Fill in the blanks using information from the poem as well as from the Internet.
- The first two men on the Moon were ______ and _______.
- They landed on the Moon on ______.
- The United States’______ was the first manned mission to land on the Moon.
- The Moon ____ the Earth every 27.3 days.
- The surface of the Moon is not smooth. It has many _____.
- A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is between the Sun and the _____.
- You can see the surface of the Moon by using a pair of _____ or a small _____.
- The first man to make proper maps of the Moon was _____.
- ______ on Earth is much stronger than that on the Moon.
- _____ have to wear special space gear, otherwise they would float away.
B) Look up the following words in the dictionary: pilgrim, lunar, rapt, hop, gravity and wanderlust.
C) Fill in the blanks with the words you have just looked up:
- _____ is the natural force that causes things to drop to the ground.
- The wish to travel to faraway places is called _____.
- A ____ is a person who makes a journey, often a long and difficult one.
- Apollo 11 made a ____ landing on 20 July, 1969.
- The rabbit____ in the field.
- She listened to the song with ____ attention.
D) Make sentences with the above six words.
Audio courtesy Tara Kriplani: