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
Neil Armstrong lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that, in their bulky spacesuits, they had broken the ignition switch for the ascent engine; using part of a pen, they pushed the circuit breaker in to activate the launch sequence. The "Eagle" then continued to its rendezvous in lunar orbit, where it docked with "Columbia", the command and service module. The three astronauts returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, to be picked up by the . After being released from an 18-day quarantine to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the