Needless to say, it was one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of the world, and the documentary Apollo 11 (2019), by Todd Douglas Miller, features the first manned moon landing through NASA footage never before seen publicly.

The rocket’s descent to the lunar surface is shown strikingly, wondrously; and shots of Armstrong and Aldrin treading the moon are the kind of thing that, in high definition, never gets old. Armstrong calls the moonscape “very pretty.” When controllers for the launch at Cape Canaveral and at Houston are not everywhere on screen, sundry spectators near the cape are everywhere. One of the controllers remarks it will soon be time for NASA to “re-acquire” (through re-entry) the Apollo 11 craft. That such a thing, fired thousands of miles above the earth to land on the moon, can be re-acquired by the country that sent it, is itself jaw-dropping. 1969 was, is, the space age!