40th Anniversary of the first man on the moon!

Timelord · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:22 am

Quote:

At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

Even though I was born far too late to see any of the Apollo missions, there are few things that fill me with pride in the human spirit than the images of Armstrong and Aldrin landing and walking on the moon.

What are your feelings of the moon landings? What do you think the future planned missions to the moon might mean to the future of mankind?

Scorpiuscat · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:11 am

To me the Moon landing was and still is the most pinnacle achievement of Mankind.

To evolve to the point where you can get your self off of the planet is a major, major accomplishment. I know its easy in this day and age to take the Moon landing for granted with all our Sci-Fi and stuff, but in reality the Moon landing is something that even today we have not been able to even match let alone eclipse.

I hope that we have the resolve to get men to Mars before I die and establish a permanent presence on the Moon itself.

the0wl · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:32 am

In retrospect, I'm extremely proud of the accomplishment, and will remain eternally pissed that we haven't expanded upon that achievement in the intervening 40 years. However, back then, I was a very different person. Being 16 at the time, I was more p.o.'d that NBC had canceled Star Trek than I was proud that we'd actually accomplished something. Go figure...

Cheers;

Scorpiuscat · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:40 am

the0wl wrote:

Being 16 at the time, I was more p.o.'d that NBC had canceled Star Trek than I was proud that we'd actually accomplished something. Go figure...

Cheers;

LOL.....I dont blame you, that was a big deal.

shāf · **Joined:** Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:34 am **Posts:** 2748

Like theOwl, I grew up with the space program (I was twelve years old at the time of the Apollo 11 landing).

The time was a strange convergence of resourcefulness of mankind (to achieve such a great feat), and the hopelessness of humanity to find peace on its home world (protests against the Vietnam War were reaching their peak as was racial violence in many urban areas).

For a brief period of time, people from all around the world watched in amazement as almost ghost-like images of two men in bulky spacesuits bounced gently across the lunar surface. And for that moment, none of the petty problems of earth seemed to matter.

I hope that in my lifetime, we can again have that feeling of singular achievement for human race and the sense that we are one with the heavens.

40th Anniversary of the first man on the moon!

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