July 1969. It's a little over eight years since the flights of Gagarin and

Shepard, followed quickly by President Kennedy's challenge to put a man

on the moon before the decade is out.

It is only seven months since NASA made a bold decision to send Apollo 8 all the

way to the moon on the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V rocket. Now,

on the morning of July 16, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and

Michael Collins sit atop another Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy

Space Center. The three-stage 363-foot rocket will use its 7.5 million pounds of

thrust to propel them into space and into history.