Three days later the three astronauts had reached the moon. One man remained aboard the spacecraft while the other tow, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, prepared to land on the surface of the moon. They made the descent in a lunar module ( lunar is ‘moon’ in Latin ). This was a special craft made of the lightest materials possible so that it would be able to take off from the moon’s surface again. Since the gravity of the moon is only one-sixth that of the earth’s, less force is needed to take off from the moon. Therefore the lunar module didn’t need a huge rocket to go up again. It weighed only as much as a small car.