When I heard Neil Armstrong had died, I could not look up at the moon or even see the stars; it was a bright, sunny day, but I thought about him and the impact he had made on me and so many other kids and grown-ups. An estimated 600 million earthlings watched him take his first step on the moon, and I was one of those souls on this planet who saw it live and will never forget that moment in history.
In 1969 I had a fascination with space. TV shows like Star Trek and Lost in Space had stoked my imagination. I had also been a fan of the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers series, and wasn't Superman the ultimate space saga, an alien who came to this world and became one of us but was oh so much more too? By the time Apollo 11 lifted off, I had every reason to be excited about it. In my young mind I believed more than anything that we would soon be zooming off to these foreign planets I imagined, with the array of aliens both good and bad to encounter.
Reality eventually catches up to all of us, and even to NASA and the whole quest for space travel. While Armstrong was a hero in every sense of the word, there seemed to be a rapid descent for the voyages to the moon, with the Apollo 13 near-disaster no doubt contributing to that. Trips to the moon ended in the early 1970s, and then the Space Shuttle became the focus, with the goal to build a space station. All of these things took a long, long time, and getting to Mars or anywhere else seemed less and less likely.
Article comments
1 - Anup Shrestha
Great Coincidence dedicated to Neil Armstrong.
Although Alien means foreign, unfamiliar, strange etc, generally Alien means some creature belonging to outer space. Similarly, for the outside world we human are Alien. Neil Armstrong was Alien for outside universe who stepped for the first time in moon and outside earth and if we care enough to see the name of Neil Armstrong as NEIL A and read it opposite it becomes A LIEN. It’s a great coincidence (or Gods will) and we need to think thousands of times that why Neil A. was selected to step in the moon in behalf of mankind.
I dedicate this coincidence to Neil Armstrong, the Alien for outer space.
2 - Igor
I watched the moon landing, as an adult with 3 children, and I quite clearly remember that the first words spoken after touchdown were, as an astronaut looked out the window: "look, there's a hill over there!"
Other people confirmed my recollection.
IMO "Look, there's a hill over there!" is a far more fitting statement for explorers and pathfinders than that silly PR statement we are always quoted.
"Look, there's a hill over there!" must have been spoken many times by Daniel Boone, Jedediah Smith, John C. Fremont, etc., and other explorers.
You can imagine Boone hiking to the top of a hill, looking around from it's height and exclaiming "Look, there's a hill over there!", because there is no better landmark than the next hill to be surmounted.
Lewis and Clark, upon reaching the temporary respite of a hilltop in the Rockys or Sierras must have said the same thing.
So it is with humans. Having reached a rest point we look around for the next summit to be surmounted.
3 - Glenn Contrarian
Igor -
I have to agree with you - it's hard to think of a more fitting phrase for humanity's drive to explore.
4 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Here's what they left behind.
Image to left: While on the moon Neil and Buzz planted a United States flag and left a sign that read, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
Credit: NASA