[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 443 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 443

Recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 13, 2019

   Mr. Posey (for himself, Ms. Wilson of Florida, Mr. Babin, and Ms. 
 Kendra S. Horn of Oklahoma) submitted the following resolution; which 
    was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and for 
                            other purposes.

Whereas, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special 
        joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an 
        American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade;
Whereas, on July 20, 1969, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong took the historic first 
        steps on the Moon and declared, ``That's one small step for man, one 
        giant leap for mankind'';
Whereas NASA built upon knowledge gleaned from the Mercury and Gemini programs 
        that included sending astronauts into orbit from Cape Canaveral and most 
        of them splashing down off the coast of Florida;
Whereas the first 4 crewed Apollo flights tested the equipment used in the 
        Apollo program, with the first flight in 1968 and the last in 1972;
Whereas the first Apollo crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, lost 
        their lives in the line of service as they conducted a simulation on the 
        launch pad in Florida, a flash fire broke out in their spacecraft;
Whereas a total of 11 crewed Apollo missions were conducted from Kennedy Space 
        Center in Florida with 6 lunar modules making a landing on the Moon and 
        a total of 12 astronauts walking on the Moon;
Whereas women and minorities were instrumental in the success of the Apollo 11 
        mission;
Whereas Margaret Hamilton, the head of the Software Engineering Division of the 
        MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, the first software engineer, led the 
        development of Apollo flight software;
Whereas Katherine Johnson, a pioneering African-American mathematician and the 
        first woman to work in Langley Research Center's Flight Research 
        Division to receive credit as author of a research report, did the 
        pioneering work to enable the rendezvous in lunar orbit that made Apollo 
        11 possible;
Whereas Susan Finley began her career as a computer programmer at the Jet 
        Propulsion Laboratory and wrote software for the Deep Space Network that 
        enabled the transmission of Armstrong's famous words: ``One small step 
        for man, one giant leap for mankind'';
Whereas Frances ``Poppy'' Northcutt, the first female engineer in NASA's Mission 
        Control Center in Houston, was integral to the success of the Apollo 
        program;
Whereas the Apollo missions laid the foundation for modern planetary science and 
        built a legacy for future scientists;
Whereas discoveries made during the Apollo missions are still being applied, 
        with thousands of scientific papers published using Apollo data;
Whereas the Apollo project not only fulfilled Kennedy's goal of landing a man on 
        the Moon, but also achieved his diplomatic goal of Cold War rivals 
        working together when in 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project saw the 
        last Apollo spacecraft dock with a Soviet Soyuz, and crews conducted 
        joint operations in orbit;
Whereas NASA established the technology to meet national interests in space, 
        achieving preeminence in space for the United States by carrying out a 
        program of scientific exploration of the Moon;
Whereas NASA is now committed to returning to the Moon in a sustainable way, 
        with innovative new technologies and systems to explore more locations 
        across the surface than were ever thought possible, and this time, when 
        we go to the Moon, we will stay;
Whereas NASA's science, technology, and human exploration activities touch every 
        aspect of our lives;
Whereas the space industry generates more than $400,000,000,000 in economic 
        activity;
Whereas in Florida alone, the space industry impact totals $19,000,000,000 
        annually and 130,000 jobs; and
Whereas more than 1,700,000 people visited the Kennedy Space Center's Visitor 
        Complex in 2018 to view many rocket launches and see the space shuttle 
        Atlantis, the Saturn V rocket, Apollo 14 command module, and mockups of 
        the capsules that took astronauts to the Moon: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon 
        landing;
            (2) honors astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael 
        Collins, and the women and men of NASA and its contractors, and 
        the support of the American taxpayers, without whose support 
        the Apollo program would not have been possible;
            (3) reiterates its support for returning humans to the Moon 
        by 2024, and to Mars and beyond;
            (4) supports the selection of a diverse lunar exploration 
        crew, including women and minorities; and
            (5) supports continued United States leadership in space.
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