On Sunday July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin attempted the first lunar landing.

The crew making the first lunar landing faced several problems: communications with Earth was intermittent, their position when they fired their descent engine was farther west than they had expected, and their computer stopped several times with data overflow program alarms during the critical landing phase.

Finally, as the Lunar Module passed through 600 feet, Armstrong noticed that they were heading for a large crater the size of the Houston Astrodome, filled with automobile-sized boulders. He took over manual control of the Lunar Module and flew over the crater, landing a few kilometers downrange. The fuel in the tanks was sloshing around so much, it gave them a reading that there was less fuel left than there actually was. Everyone listening to Armstrong and Aldrin describe the last few seconds of flight also counted down the seconds of remaining fuel. It seemed forever before we heard the words “Houston, the Eagle has landed.”