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The lunar module on board is Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin photographed from the control module where Michael Collins stayed on July 20, 1969. Michael Collins / NASA / Handout via REUTERS

On July 21, 1969, the man was walking for the first time on the moon. Begun twelve years earlier, the space conquest has continued ever since. Chronology.

On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon in front of half a billion Earthmen taped to their TV screen to 384 400 kilometers away. This "small step" allows America to double the USSR in the conquest of space. Because the two superpowers, plunged in full cold war, also engage battle beyond the mesosphere. It is for each to affirm its scientific and technological superiority over the other. Until then, Moscow was racing in the lead. It is she who put into orbit the first satellite, she who sent the first living being, then the first cosmonaut in space.

But the situation changes on this 1969 summer night. " We chose to go to the moon during this decade, " John F. Kennedy said on September 12, 1962 at Rice University in Houston. Eleven Apollo missions later, it's now done. Since then, the conquest of space - joined by new countries such as China, India, Brazil and Israel - has continued. Before a new mission on the moon? This is in any case what NASA promises for 2024 .

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