Spaceflight to work on American missiles at what became the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. This work on missiles such as Juno I and Atlas enabled launch of the first US satellite Explorer 1 on February 1, 1958, and the first American in orbit, John Glenn in "Friendship 7" on February 20, 1962. As director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Von Braun oversaw development of a larger class of rocket called Saturn, which allowed the US to send the first two humans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, to the Moon and back on Apollo 11 in July 1969. Over the same
The First Men in the Moon (2010 film) recording and recollections of an old man (Bedford), told in 1969. This "neat framing device" presents the story as "alternative history" which is "remarkably faithful" to H. G. Wells' original story, treating it "playfully, but ... more or less in earnest." He enjoyed the film's "sly" references to modernity, such as airline flight safety announcements, and its "Pooterish approximation of Neil Armstrong's famous words: 'What is this for us, but a tiny footfall...'" Dowling found that once on the Moon, "the drama hits a soggy spot", the Selenite inhabitants "are a little unconvincing," and when the duo are separated, "the