Apollo 11

Eagle descending in landing configuration - top of picture I think is Michael Collins' window frame....

There are no photographs of Neil Armstrong on the moon, apart from one where he is seen reflected in Buzz Aldrin's helmet visor. A great shame, since the television pictures were very poor (and black and white!).

Although designated as "Lunar Module Pilot", Buzz Aldrin was more like the Flight Engineer, as the actual "flying" was done by the Commander - obviously Neil Armstrong in this case.

Training to fly this unusual craft was done with an equally unusual simulator, nicknamed the "flying bedstead" - a spindly-looking rig with a jet engine for vertical thrust. It was properly known by the catchy title of Lunar Landing Research Vehicle - LLRV for short.

Fixed in front of the window you can see the film camera that took the footage of the landing sequence - but it was only shooting 6 frames per second!

An earlier version of this was built in Britain and first flew in 1953, with one fatal accident in 1957.

Neil Armstrong had a close call with the LLRV, when the manoeuvring thrusters malfunctioned, and he had to swiftly eject. Despite this drama, he was back at work later that day, and hardly said a word about it.

NASA had built five of these trainers in all, two LLRVs and three LLTVs ("..Training Vehicle"), and three of these were destroyed in accidents - the other pilots also ejected safely.

The last part of every Apollo landing was manually piloted by the mission commander, and Armstrong said his mission would not have been successful without so much training on these unusual-looking vehicles. He ended up having to fly manually rather further than expected, due to navigation problems.