PET READING PART 4 PRELIMINARY ENGLISH TEST 4

TO THE MOON
In 1969, three people in a tiny spaceship made history with a trip the world will never forget. NASA officials selected Michael Collins, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong. The first manned lunar landing mission was called Apollo 11, and their destination was the Moon. Tens of thousands of people worked on the Apollo project to send those men to the Moon. The project, also known as the Apollo program, took ten years of preparation. The first Apollo flight was a disaster because the spacecraft caught fire on the ground. But NASA continued with the Apollo program. During future space missions, the astronauts practised flying their space crafts. They also performed the tasks they needed to know so that they were able to fly to the Moon and land on it. On the Apollo 8 mission, the astronauts flew around the Moon ten times. They were almost ready for the first Moon landing. The rocket that carried the spacecraft and the astronauts into orbit around the Moon was called the Saturn 5. It blasted through space at a speed of at least 25,000 miles an hour. Even at that speed, it took 3 days, 3 hours, and 49 minutes to reach the Moon. The Apollo 11 mission used a lunar module designed only for landing on the Moon. It was called the "Eagle." On July 20, 1969, the Eagle landed on the Moon's desolate surface. Only two astronauts stepped on the Moon that day. Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin followed about twenty minutes later. The astronauts set up a TV camera, and the whole world watched the landing on TV. Michael Collins waited for them in the spacecraft and orbited the Moon. His job was to take care of the spacecraft that would take them back home. He had to make sure nothing happened to it!

PET Reading Part 3