Celebrate the Moon Landing at Tyler Junior College

Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and TJC will be celebrating with planetarium shows, a rocket-building class, and more.  

Can you name all three astronauts who were on the Apollo 11 mission?

With the help of Google, we know that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin were the three astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission, and landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.  CBS News said the mission launched on July 16th, so they had been in space for four days by the time the historic moment happened.

The History Channel pointed out that not all three actually walked on the moon.  Michael Collins stayed in the main vessel while the lunar module "Eagle" broke off and took Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon's surface.  After Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, they slept there overnight and rejoined Collins after that.  All three headed back to earth on July 22.  They were all in their upper thirties at the time, and quickly became heroes.

If you've got kids who are dreaming of becoming an astronaut, tomorrow is a day they're totally gonna love.  The Center for Earth and Space Science Education at TJC is having its Moon Day celebration tomorrow (Saturday, July 20th) from 11am-4pm and it's just $5 for adults and $3 for kids and seniors.

They'll have lots of exhibitors, along with planetarium shows, a model rocket building class, kids' book reading with autographs from the author, space science and engineering lectures for adults, and more things that will make us realize how huge the universe really is.  It took 76 hours and 240,000 miles of traveling for the Apollo astronauts to reach the moon.  And there was no Buc-ee's or Hampton Inn to stop at along the way.

Some of the exhibitors at Moon Day include Tyler Civil Air Patrol, Discovery Science Place, and Hobbytown, and I bet they wouldn't object if the kids wore their best astronaut costume.

Doors open at 10:30 am and the full schedule of events is listed HERE.