Page:Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages.pdf/2

 Dr. Thomas O Paine is the present NASA Administrator.

The disc, about the size of a 50-cent piece, is made of silicon -- a non-metallic chemical element found abundantly in nature and used widely in modern electronics.

Through a process used to make microminiature electronic circuits, the statements, the messages, and names were etched on the grey-colored disc. Each message was reduced 200 times to a size much smaller than the head of a pin (0.0425 x 0.055 inches) and appears on the disc as a barely visible dot.

NASA's Electronics Research Center at Cambridge, Mass., was assisted by the Sprague Electric Company's Semi-Conductor Division, Worcester, Mass., in preparing the historic disc.

In addition to the disc, Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., will also leave on the lunar surface an American flag and a plaque inscribed "Here men from the planet Earth/First set foot upon the Moon/July 1969 A.D./We came in peace for all mankind." The plaque will bear the names of Armstrong, Aldrin, the third Apollo astronaut,Michael Collins, and President Nixon, and will be attached to a leg of the descent stage of the lunar module.