The public believes (wrongly) that President John F. Kennedy is the president who is solely responsible for the first successful moon landing in history.
Actually, three presidents played a role.
President Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 as the sole entity for the US space program. (P. 72, The Moon Landings by Colin Salter, 2019).
In 1960, Eisenhower set up the Apollo Project, whose aim was to land an American on the moon and bring him back safely. (P 109).
In 1961, Kennedy pledged to the world that man would land on the moon and return safely before the decade was up. (P 23)
On 16 July 1969, President Nixon watched the launch of Apollo 11. (P 125)
The command module was codenamed Columbia while the lunar landing module was codenamed Eagle, thus giving rise to the immortal phrase from Armstrong to Earth upon landing at the Sea of Tranquility—
“The Eagle has landed.”
P.S. By convention, NASA astronauts were allowed to name their own mission craft.
But when the Apollo 10 crew called theirs Snoopy and Charlie Brown, after characters from the Peanuts cartoon strip, it was decided that the Apollo 11 crew should choose more serious names.
