The First Lunar Landing

• Madeleine Rea, Grade 5, Camberwell South Primary School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

In T minus 3 seconds, 123 blast off. My life, family, friends, my whole world was being left behind on my home planet. From this aspect it looked like a golf ball. A burning tear quickly ran down my pale cheek. The rocket shot off fast and furiously into an unknown territory: space. For hundreds of years humans looked at the sky having no clue where it, now I, Neil Armstrong- a young man, was to be landing on the moon.
Our Massive Saturn v rocket would take us on an amazing journey to the moon and back along with my crew and companions, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Whoosh! Weightlessness- I had never experienced such a feeling before in my life. No gravity, my legs and arms drifted upward as I unbuckled my seatbelt to feel the full experience. "This sure beats ice skating," Michael announced "How truly amazing!" Buzz exclaimed.
Day 1 our food is slop it has no crunch and texture, I miss those hard steaks and smooth mashed potatoes. Our beds are tight but they'll do for now. The views have been extraordinary, today we passed through some meteors but no damage was done.
The next 6 days that followed were days of communication and sleep, each day NASA sent clips and messages giving us an insight into the world news. We would sleep most of the time, and snuggle down into our blankets.
It is day 7, our rocket is moving slowly I can just see Earth a tiny speck in the distance, I miss my family, the fresh air and being free.
The views were spectacular as usual, it was day 8, today we would land on our destination and see what this place was truly like. Our ship passed Mars and Venus, the two planets looked big and intimidating, as I watched out of the window I felt so small, in a giant world of big planets. "Hey Neil we are streaming this to millions of televisions around the globe so be ready." Buzz was confident but I was not. My heart was racing, powerful thumping, boom boom boom.
The moment here now, this event was happening to me, I was so excited, there was no real atmosphere, so we kind of glided in an astonishing way. Our hearts racing. The moon a vast clear white surface with a few craters here and there.
Our whole journey led up to this moment. I opened the air lock, Buzz and Michael followed, I stepped on to the dusty ground it was hard and rocky. I confidently planted the American flag into the moon’s surface and said: “One small step for man but one big step for mankind.” It felt amazing to be the first human being on the moon I would be remembered forever, people watching looking, being inspired by my moves. I'm Commander Neil Armstrong and I am part of the three people that first travelled to the moon.