On a summer evening 40 years ago, people all around the world stared at the moon in awe. Throughout history, humans have looked to Earth's natural satellite and imagined the face of a "man in the moon." On this particular night, however, there was a man on the moon.

Two men, actually, and there was nothing imaginary about it. On July 20, 1969, as millions of earthlings watched on TV, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 mission, stepped onto the lunar surface and uttered these famous words:

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
—astronaut Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969

The Apollo 11 crew, left to right, Neil Armstrong, mission commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, lunar module pilot.

Armstrong was one of three astronauts who traveled to the moon in a spacecraft that had blasted off three days earlier. When the craft, or command module, got within landing distance of the moon, it went into orbit. Two of the astronauts, Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, then climbed into a landing craft, called the Eagle, and made their way to the surface.

For two and a half hours the two men walked, jumped, snapped photographs, and collected rocks. The mission's third astronaut, pilot Michael Collins, had to remain behind in the command module, orbiting the moon alone.

To those who remember that day—and that would be anyone who was over the age of 5—it was an astonishing event. Ira Wolfman, then 18, remembers, "I watched Armstrong step onto the moon while I was in Toronto, with 50,000 other people who looked up at the video image projected onto a giant screen. Unforgettable."

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands beside the U.S. flag that he and Neil Armstrong planted on the moon.

Cold War Space RaceThe moon landing was the triumph of an unofficial competition between the United States and the Soviet Union (what is now Russia and several surrounding countries). It had begun some 12 years earlier. At the time, the two nations were twin superpowers embroiled in a "cold war" of ideas and ideals. Each country was eager to prove that its very different political and economic systems were the best. In the same way that the Olympic games often take on greater meaning than just a sports competition, the so–called space race between the two nations was seen in a nationalistic light.

The United States had been caught off guard when the Soviets launched the first space satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. The Soviets quickly followed by sending the first human into space, cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, who orbited Earth in 1961. Eager not only to catch up but also to get ahead of the Soviets, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge to the United States.

Though Kennedy would not live to see it—he was assassinated in 1963—his vision became reality on that July day in 1969.

After the Apollo 11 mission, U.S. astronauts returned to the moon five more times (Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17). In all, 12 men walked on the moon.

And then it all stopped. Since 1972, no one has gone back.

New Era After the short era of moon landings, the U.S. space program took a different path. For more than 35 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) concentrated on its shuttle program and cooperated with other nations in the building of the International Space Station. It sent unpiloted spacecraft to explore the planets, their moons, and the distant edges of our solar system. In 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, which has provided fascinating new information about the universe.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands before the Eagle moon lander.

"We're now in a period of space exploration that's far more fertile and mind-boggling than what was happening in the '60s. The moon landing wasn't much more than a demonstration of engineering and of brute force," says Hugh Westrup, managing editor of Current Science. "[If you want to really be astonished], check out any sample of the Hubble images, for example, and all they reveal about the universe."

Nevertheless, many scientists think the time to return to the moon has come. "We have better maps of Mars than we do of our own moon," says Craig Tooley, project manager of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The LRO is a robotic scout that was launched in June. Its mission is to gather crucial data about the moon's environment that will help astronauts prepare for long-term lunar expeditions. "This is an amazingly sophisticated spacecraft. Its [set] of instruments will send us data in areas where we've been hungry for information for years," says Tooley.

NASA hopes to return humans to the moon by 2020.

Back to the FuturePerhaps some of those future lunar travelers will go to the dry, rocky expanse of the moon's geography called the Sea of Tranquility. There they might seek out the site of the first human landing, which should be just as the astronauts left it. (On the moon's dry, airless surface, there are no winds or weather to erode the land or the objects on it.)

If so, those future moon walkers will find the American flag, the base of the lunar lander, and a plaque bearing this message:

And in the dusty moon soil, they will see Armstrong's and Aldrin's boot prints, still fresh after all these years.

When Aldrin returned to Earth, he said, "This has been far more than three men on a mission to the moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown."

Links

• Today, the Apollo 11 command module is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The museum offers a great overview of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11:
  www.nasm.si.edu/events/apollo11
• For Hubble Space Telescope news and images:
  www.hubblesite.org
• NASA sites of interest:
  www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html
  www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html
  www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/why_moon.html

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