- "The moon was like this awesome, romantic, mysterious thing, hanging up there in the sky where you could never reach it, no matter how much you wanted to."
- ―Philip J. Fry[source]
Although the Original Lunar Landing Site was long lost to humanity, it was rediscovered in 3000 by Philip J. Fry and Turanga Leela.
History[]
In 1947 the crash landing of an alien space craft prompted President Harry Truman to order it be studied at Area 51, which was being used to build the set for a staged moon landing. In response, Truman decided to actually land on the moon and founded NASA to do it. 22 years later, on July 20th 1969, Apollo 11 finally landed on the moon, with Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.
The Lunar Module returned to Earth with the crew of Apollo 11 in 1969, and was displayed in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., until it was returned to the original landing site on the moon by the "Historical Sticklers Society". At some point in the next few hundred years humanity forgot the story and the location of the original Lunar Landing, and invented a history that has credit for the landing going to "whalers".
The historic landing site was rediscovered after Fry and Leela became stranded on the moon's surface after venturing out of Luna Park. With the approaching shadow of the moon and the freezing nighttime, they took refuge in the relocated module until it was grabbed by Amy Wong using Planet Express Ship's crane magnet.
For whatever reason, the lander is complete when Armstrong and Aldrin would have used the lander to return to the lunar command module, leaving only the landing gear, landing engine, and fuel tanks on the surface.