Successful moonwalk left Americans ready for more

The moment when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon captivated the world

About 600 million people — one-fifth of the world’s population — stopped what they were doing for just a few minutes on July 20, 1969.

They huddled around tiny television sets. They turned up the volume on their radios. They pulled off to the side of the road to listen and checked into motels to watch.

It was a big day — the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped foot on the moon.

And it was the largest audience for any single event in history.

For years, people thought men stepping foot on the moon was impossible — that President John F. Kennedy’s goal to make it happen before 1970 was ridiculous.

But then NASA did it.

At 9:56 p.m. Houston time, Neil Armstrong descended the ladder of the lunar module, placing his foot on the dusty gray surface as he uttered the now famous phrase: “One Small Step for

Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind.”

Fifty years later, the world still remembers this as the point at which America proved its status as a superpower — that the nation was the most technologically advanced in the world.

The country may have stopped going to the moon prematurely — several Apollo missions were cancelled before Gene Cernan became the last man on the moon in 1972 as part of Apollo 17 — but NASA has kept the upper hand.

No other country has even come close to putting humans on the moon.

But then again, neither has NASA as of late.

Several presidents have tried and failed to rekindle the support for a moon return. President Donald Trump is the most recent to do so, aiming to put humans on the moon by 2024.

It’s too early to say whether this goal will be achieved, but it’s not looking good so far. The rocket that will take astronauts there continues to fall behind schedule and NASA has thus far failed to receive the appropriate monetary support.

And it remains unclear if Americans will ever touch the moon’s surface again.