Neil Alden Armstrong (b. Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA of Scottish [via Ireland] and German ancestry, on 5 Aug 1930), commander of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set foot on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity, at 02:56 and 15sec GMT on 21 Jul 1969 (22:56 and 15sec EDT-Eastern Daylight Time-on 20 Jul 1969). He was followed out of the lunar module Eagle by Col. Edwin Eugene `Buzz' Aldrin, Jr, USAF (b. Montclair, New Jersey, USA of Swedish, Dutch and British ancestry, on 20 Jan 1930), while the command module Columbia piloted by Lt-Col. Michael Collins, USAF (b. Rome, Italy, of Irish and pre-Revolutionary American ancestry, on 31 Oct 1930) orbited above. Eagle landed at 20:17 and 42sec GMT on 20 July (16:17 and 42sec EDT) and lifted off at 17:54 GMT on 21 July (13:54 EDT), after a stay of 21hr 36min. Apollo 11 had blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 13:32 GMT on 16 July (09:32 EDT) and was a culmination of the US space programme which at its peak employed 376,600 people and in 1966-7 attained a record budget of $5.9 billion.Read more:1969: First Men on the MoonBuzz Aldrin talks Mars, the Moon and breaking records