When Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, he became the biggest live television star in history.

Officially more than 500 million people gathered around their sets to watch him leap from the ladder of Apollo 11's Eagle landing craft and onto the surface of the Sea of Tranquility.

But as AFP reported at the time, that figure was probably an underestimation.

Experts now believe the real number was closer to 700 million, a fifth of the planet's population at the time.

Next month will mark 50 years since Armstrong's famous phrase -- "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" -- was heard around the world.

The moment was the culmination of an unprecedented 31-hour live link-up between NASA and major US TV networks.

Armstrong's first steps onto the lunar landscape on July 21, 1969 were followed second-by-second by viewers across the globe, with the notable exception of China and the old Soviet bloc.

Normal life across the planet stopped for those special moments, AFP reported, with Japan's Emperor Hirohito interrupting a ritual walk with his empress to watch it.

The mission was covered in exhaustive detail over a marathon eight days of broadcasts from the last-minute preparations and the lift-off, to the moonwalk and return to Earth.

Some 3,500 journalists followed events at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.

- 'Astronomical' cost -

Joel Banow, who was a director for CBS News at the time, said the sheer scale of the event was ming-boggling.

"It was my job to make the programme as exciting as possible. We spent more than $1 million on the production, which was astronomical for a news programme in '69," he told Robert Stone in his documentary "Chasing the Moon".

"Some of the ideas I came up with were inspired by science fiction films I saw as a child," he admitted.

In fact, TV channels competed with each other to come up with the most "space age" sets, with some turning to star sci-fi authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Orson Welles, the director of the radio drama "The War of the Worlds".

No fewer than 340 cameras captured the take-off of the Saturn V rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a colour camera on board that could send images back live.

Every second of the mission was recorded by still cameras and tape recorders.

The Eagle had a black and white camera fixed to its exterior that began filming as soon as Armstrong opened the door of the lunar module, as well as a 16 mm still camera.

- Fuzzy images -

The images turned out to be rather fuzzy but very few people back on Earth seemed to worry.

"They had a ghostliness about them, you could almost see through the astronauts -- the images were so slight to reduce the size of the transmission signal," said NASA's own television director Theo Kamecke.

The lunar landing -- at the height of the Cold War and with the Vietnam war going against the US -- was a huge demonstration of the technological superiority of the Americans.

"Apollo 11 was one of the least well filmed missions because the astronauts were not as well trained because the Americans were rushing to beat the Russians" to the Moon, said Charles-Antoine de Rouvre, the maker of a new French documentary on the mission.

Like many of his colleagues, he has been able to use never-before-seen images and recordings released by NASA recently.

"I always wanted to relive that night," he said. "People felt such intense emotions during those moments when everything stopped."

It was also the point when TV, with colour sets beginning to become more common, truly became popular, de Rouvre recalled.

With the astronauts looking back on the "Blue Planet", an image that would later help galvanise the nascent environmental movement, an iconic moment in human history was recorded.

"Everyone realised the importance of the moment and its symbolic power," de Rouvre said.

The exploration of space in 10 key dates
Paris (AFP) June 14, 2019 - From the Soviet Union's pioneering satellite to the first man on the Moon 50 years ago, here are 10 key dates in space exploration.

- 1957: Sputnik -

On October 4, 1957, Moscow launches the first artificial space satellite, Sputnik 1, ushering in the Cold War tussle for the cosmos.

The beach ball-sized aluminium sphere takes 98 minutes to orbit the Earth and sends back the first message from space, simple "beep-beep-beep" radio signals.

On November 3, Sputnik 2 carries the first living being to fully orbit the Earth, a small street dog called Laika. She dies after a few hours.

- 1961: Gagarin, first man -

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space, completing a single, 108-minute orbit.

Twenty-three days later, Alan Shepard is the first American in space when he makes a 15-minute trip on May 5.

The Cold War rivals are only joined in space by a third country in 2003 when China sends up Yang Liwei onboard Earth orbiter Shenzou V.

- 1969: on the Moon -

On July 21, 1969, US astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to step onto the Moon, his teammate Edwin Aldrin joining him around 20 minutes later.

Between 1969 and 1972, 12 astronauts -- all American -- walked on the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo program.

- 1971: space station -

On April 19, 1971, the Soviet Union launches the first orbital space station, Salyut 1.

Construction of the still-operating International Space Station (ISS) starts in 1998. The biggest man-made structure in space, it orbits Earth 16 times a day.

The ISS, in which 16 countries participate, took over from the Russian space station Mir, which was brought back to Earth in 2001 after 15 years in orbit.

- 1976: Mars -

On July 20, 1976, US spacecraft Viking 1 becomes the first to successfully land on Mars and send back images of the Red Planet.

The robot Opportunity explored Mars between 2004 and 2018, with NASA's Curiosity Rover still active there.

About 40 missions have been sent to Mars, more than half failing.

- 1981: space shuttle -

On April 12, 1981, the US space shuttle Columbia, the first reusable manned spacecraft, makes its first voyage.

It is followed by Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, which serve the ISS until the shuttle programme winds up in 2011.

The United States has since depended on Russia to transport its astronauts to the ISS.

Two US shuttles were destroyed in flight, with the loss of 14 astronauts: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003.

- 1990: Hubble -

On April 25, 1990, the Hubble is the first space telescope to be placed into orbit, at 547 kilometres (340 miles) from Earth.

Thirteen metres (42 feet) long, Hubble revolutionises astronomy, allowing scientists to observe the planets and most distant stars and galaxies.

- 2001: space tourist -

On April 28, 2001, Italian American multi-millionaire Dennis Tito, 60, becomes the world's first space tourist. He pays Russia $20 million to stay on the ISS for eight days.

In all, seven space tourists have taken Russian flights to the ISS.

- 2008: private SpaceX -

On September 29, 2008, US company SpaceX is the first private venture to successfully launch a rocket into Earth's orbit, the Falcon 1.

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship on May 22, 2012 becomes the first commercial spacecraft to visit the ISS.

- 2014: comet landing -

On November 12, 2014, the European Space Agency places a small robot, Philae, on a comet more than 500 million kilometres from Earth. The first comet lander is part of a mission aiming to explore the origins of the Solar System.

The man-made object that is furthest away from the Earth is the unmanned US spaceship Voyager 1, launched in September 1977 and still travelling. In August 2012 it made it into interstellar space, about 13 billion miles from Earth.

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The Second Moon Race
Gerroa, Australia (SPX) Mar 13, 2017
The US and China are in an undeclared race back to the Moon. At first glance it's easy to dismiss China's efforts as being little more than what the US and Russia achieved decades ago. And while the pace of China's manned launches has been slow with over a year in many cases between launches; looks can be deceptive and China has achieved each critical step towards building a permanent space station within the next few years. Meanwhile, its overall space program builds out each critical element to ... read more