Less than a year after reading the first creation story from Genesis while in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, astronaut Frank Borman huddled around a television in a small office of the White House with President Richard Nixon and his Chief of Staff on the evening of July 20, 1969 to watch live news coverage of the first human to walk on the Moon.

After completing a post-landing checklist, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong opened the hatch to the lunar module Eagle at 10:39 p.m. EDT and began descending its ladder while mounting a television camera for the occasion. Television cameras were also being prepared in the Oval Office next door to the president, who was watching events unfold moments before he was scheduled to speak with Armstrong in a split-screen television conversation.

The president had not felt this excited since his inauguration. “Hooray,” said Nixon, clapping when Armstrong stepped off the ladder to the Moon’s surface. Three days later, when meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts on deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet minutes after they had returned to Earth, Nixon said, “This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.” Continue reading →