The San Diego Air & Space Museum hopes to recreate the atmosphere of the night the world watched men walk on the moon with a special presentation Saturday.
People around the world stopped what they were doing to watch the U.S. broadcast showing Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Now, as NASA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the event, there are celebrations popping up all around the world including here in San Diego - right in Balboa Park.
Doors open at 6 p.m. Saturday and at 8:30 p.m., the museum will show a Smithsonian documentary “The Day We Walked on the Moon.”
“It’s really powerful and it’s really great for kids to learn about the history of the Apollo program and the Apollo 11 moon landing,” said museum spokesperson David Neville.
There are a number of hands-on exhibits at the museum for visitors.
The museum even has the Apollo 9 spacecraft on display. The astronauts on that mission in March of 1969 completed a 10-day mission in space that produced a series of milestones such as the first spacewalk of the Apollo program, the first manned test flight of the Lunar Module and the first docking of a two manned American spacecraft.
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Many of the Apollo program's other key players have died. Of the 24 astronauts who flew to the moon from 1968 through 1972, only 12 are still alive. Of the 12 who walked on the moon, four survive.
Read more about that historic day here.
Find out more information about the San Diego Air & Space Museum here.
