Man on the Moon

But overall, the lunar landing was indeed a global event. The New York Times reporter covering the story, John Noble Wilford, recalled the pride that swept across the world.

In the 2007 documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon,” (Collins) said: “People, instead of saying, ‘Well, you Americans did it,’ everywhere they said: ‘We did it!’ We, humankind, we, the human race, we, people did it!” The inclusiveness of the experience was remarkable, given the space race’s origins in an atmosphere of fear and belligerence.

______________________________________________

Nostalgia remains high for the Apollo 11 excursion, as evidenced by the lofty price that memorabilia will fetch at an upcoming auction.

The lunar landing sequence, which has never been seen before by the public, provided step-by step instructions to U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they guided the Eagle landing craft onto the lunar surface in July 1969.

Each page of the document is inscribed and signed by Aldrin, pushing its value to an estimated $175,000.

______________________________________________

Armstrong’s first step on the moon is truly a “where were you when...” moment. Live Science has compiled a few memories from that history-making event. 

“I remember my mother scolding me for not giving the Apollo landing my undivided attention. “Don’t you realize history is being made?!” she said.”

“My main memory of Apollo 11 is of staying awake until about 4 am (UK time,) just before Armstrong stepped down the ladder and waiting for the action to begin on an ancient black-and-white tv set—then dosing off and missing it by about 5 mins ... !”

______________________________________________

And from the Daily Kos:

I remember standing beside people watching this on the street, all of us looking into the store windows where the television showed the grainy images. When it happened, we all just turned to each other with a similar look of wonder on our faces, a smile and shaking of heads. Some even shook hands, hippies and people in suits together.

______________________________________________

Many who talk about the lunar landing recall the societal upheaval that gripped America in 1969. John Noble Wilford, The New York Times reporter covering the story, remembered the moment as a great relief for a weary nation.

The society that responded with can-do confidence to President Kennedy’s challenge had changed, almost beyond recognition, by the eve of Apollo’s climactic successes. It dismayed me to think that the country was so transformed that the first human voyages to the Moon might wind up as irrelevancies. Selfishly, I wanted the story to be as big and inspiring of awe as I had counted on when I took the assignment. I wanted the same country that decided to go to the Moon to be there, relieved and enthralled, when at last we succeeded.

______________________________________________

Wilford adds that the history has yet to come to terms with the tremendous implications of putting a man on the moon.

In a 2008 book, “Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth,” Robert Poole contends that the picture was the spiritual nascence of the environmental movement, writing that “it is possible to see that Earthrise marked the tipping point, the moment when the sense of the space age flipped from what it meant for space to what it means for Earth.”

...“As you look back 100 years from now, which is more important, the idea that people left their home planet or the idea that people arrived at their nearby satellite?” Collins asked himself. “I’m not sure, but I think probably you would say Apollo 8 was of more significance than Apollo 11, even though today we regard Apollo 11 as being the showpiece and zenith of the Apollo program, rightly so. But, as I say, 100 years from now, historians may say Apollo 8 is more significant; it’s more significant to leave than it is to arrive.”

...At the conclusion of that flight, Apollo 17, I solicited historians’ assessment of the significance of these early years in space. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. predicted that in 500 years, the 20th century would probably be remembered mainly for humanity’s ventures beyond its native planet. At the close of the century, he had not changed his mind.

...“We were really very privileged,” (Armstrong) said, “to live in that thin slice of history where we changed how man looks at himself and what he might become and where he might go.”

______________________________________________

Still, despite all the nostalgia, funding for NASA remains inadequate for a project that would equal Apollo’s ambition. Author Tom Wolfe writes that the Apollo 11 venture was not the beginning of space exploration, but in many ways, the end. After winning the space race, America’s competitive spirit was exhausted.

The American space program, the greatest, grandest, most Promethean — O.K. if I add “godlike”? — quest in the history of the world, died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon.