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Australia Moon Landing

2009 Fifty Cent

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The 1969 Moon Landing was an incredible, fascinating and most shocking moment based on the scientific know how during this period. In comparison to our applied science of today The Moon Landing of the Apollo 11 was an accomplishment that truly was of great and insurmountable magnitude. Today we have more processing power in our cellular phones than Apollo 11 had in the entire space craft. The Moon Landing was a momentous and incredible achievement and inspired the Royal Australian Mint to produce this commemorative fifty cent to mark its 40th anniversary.

The reversewas designed by Wojciech Pietranik and shows his impression of the moon landing. It has the Earth, Moon and the space module. It also contains the legend 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOON LANDING. The obverse features an Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth II, right-facing and crowned. It has the legend ELIZABETH II AUSTRALIA 2009.

Even though The Moon Landing of the Apollo 11 was a momentous victory for the world it was not a continuous and easy mission in its entirety. Upon landing Apollo 11, Armstrong had to manoeuvre over an area of challenging and gigantic rock and gravel surface. Due to the abrupt and sudden onset of this occurrence there was only 20 seconds of fuel left when Armstrong touched down.Also, due to a switch that was accidentally broken off of one of the circuit breakers, the astronauts battled the possibility of being stranded on the surface of the moon (Daily Mail, 2009) . The danger had become so imminent that US President Richard Nixon had prepared a speech to the nation disclosing the deaths of the Apollo 11 Trio. Aldrin's quick and clever thinking saved them. Aldrin later stated, "In looking around at some of the lunar dust on the floor, I discovered something that really didn't belong there - a broken end of a circuit breaker". He improvised with a ball point pen, wedging it into the hole where the switch had once been allowing them to take off for the return trip to earth.

The present day scientist is able to calculate the span of space between earth and the moon. This valuable information can be directly attributed to a retro reflector display that the two astronauts fashioned. Daily laser beams are aimed in the direction of the moon from the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. When the time is measured based on the beams that are mirrored back to earth, the span of space or distance between earth and the moon is determined. The first specimens were basalts, dark-colored igneous rocks, brought back to earth by Apollo 11 from another planetoid. In estimation they are believed to be 3.7 billion years old (Smithsonian National Airspace and Museum, 2014) .