Gibraltar Post issued a set of six stamps to celebrate one of the greatest events of this year - 50th anniversary of the Moon landing. The items depict such historic images courtesy of NASA as: launch of Apollo 11, Apollo 11 lifts off, a view of the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle, photograph of the lunar module at Tranquility Base, a close-up view of astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s boot print in the lunar soil, and the Apollo 11 crew await pickup by a helicopter from the USS Hornet. This interesting philatelic release was designed by Stephen Perera.
This year people from around the world mark the 50th anniversary of the very first time that humankind set foot on another planet. This happened when Neil Armstrong stepped out of the Eagle lander from the Apollo 11 at 20.17 UTC on the 20th of July 1969. A few minutes later, he was joined by Buzz Aldrin, and the two of them spent roughly two hours outside the Eagle lander during their 21 hour stay on the lunar surface. The project was initiated by John F. Kennedy in 1961, when he promised to send a man to the moon and safely returning him to Earth within the decade. This led to a Cold War Space Race between the USSR and the United States, which ended with the success of Apollo 11.
See also other interesting Moon landing stamps.
