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Apollo Anniversary: Moon Landing "Inspired World"On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 p.m. ET, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped off the "Eagle" onto the surface of the moon and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Thirty-five years later, Steven Dick, NASA's chief historian at the space agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., said that a thousand years from now, that step may be considered the crowning achievement of the 20th century. "Putting a man on the moon not only inspired the nation, but also the world," Dick said. "The 1960s were a tumultuous time in the U.S., and the moon landing showed what could be accomplished at a time when much else was going wrong." Armstrong's step was the culmination of a goal set forth by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961. In a speech before a joint session of Congress, the President had announced his objective of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" before the end of the decade. Moon Return? The continuing interest in the moon, according to Dick, is one of the reasons President George W. Bush's Vision for U.S. Space Exploration—outlined in a speech at NASA headquarters on January 14—is so important. The vision, which has been widely criticized for its funding, appropriateness, and time line, calls for a return to the moon no later than 2020. The idea is to foster further scientific study of Earth's satellite and to use it as a stepping stone to get to Mars and beyond. "The new space vision will perhaps have an even broader impact than the moon, and certainly a more sustained one," Dick said. "In addition to technologies that will be developed, the new space vision carries on the long American tradition of exploration in the spirit of Lewis and Clark."
