Neil Armstrong the first manned Moon landing, and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module. When Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, he famously said: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and Armstrong and his former crewmates received a Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. After he resigned from NASA in
Moon rock the three astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission: Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. Because of their rarity on Earth, and the difficulty of obtaining more, Moon rocks have been frequent targets of theft and vandalism, and many have gone missing or were stolen. Moon rock Moon rock or lunar rock is rock that is found on the Earth's moon including lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, or rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface (and which has then landed on the Earth as meteorites). Moon rocks on Earth come from three sources: