One giant step that continues to leave an enormous, lasting impression on the sands of time

On July 20th, 1969, this picture was taken of astronaut and NASA's Apollo 11 mission commander, Neil Armstrong, after he had collected some dust and rocks as the first man to ever set foot on the lunar surface. This photo and many others taken at the time remain iconic images of a staggering achievement for mankind, and one that remains unmatched even today, notwithstanding the recent conquering of Mars by NASA's rover.

Armstrong died on Saturday at the age of 82 due to complications arising out of recent cardiovascular surgery. He was pretty much a conundrum to many, in that he tended to play down his own fame and/or achievements, and people felt that they were scratching the surface only, never really catching a glimpse of the expected fire inside. The media quite naturally wanted to penetrate that exterior and paint a more detailed  image on the rather blank canvas presented to them, but Armstrong rarely if ever let his guard down.

In today's world of attention-seeking media-hugging wannabe-celebrity, famous people like Neil Armstrong are very hard to come by, and for that alone he will be sadly missed. In 2012, being born rich and being the son or daughter of some Hollywood face can be an express ticket to your own TV show about nothing at all, and all the media attention any airhead twenty-something could desire. In stark contrast, the first man to set foot on a distant planet almost 250,000 miles away, himself an engineer, turned his back on the fame game and went back to work. It's quite an example to follow, and one that more people should learn from today. 

Apollo 11 was Armstrong's last rendezvous with space, and he left NASA in the early 70's to become a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he remained pretty much out of the spotlight. However, more recently, in 2010, he did step back into it to voice his respected opinions on the Obama administration's decision to shut down NASA's Constellation Program for moon exploration. He was far from supportive over the mere idea that private American "space taxis" would transport US astronauts to the international space station, given that the space shuttle was to be buried. 

"We will have no American access to, and return from, low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future.  For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable", he wrote in 2011. 

One could argue all day long about whether space travel is worth the expense today, with two overseas wars still ongoing and the economy living (and dying) in the dumpster. But you only have to look at the media and public reaction to seeing the Curiosity rover's touchdown on Mars, and excitement over the images being transmitted back to Earth, to realize how awe-inspiring man's conquering of other planets remains, not least because it sort of augments our own feeling of being, well, human! 

Looking back now, from 2012, it seems unbelievable that we were able to walk on the moon back in 1969, with technology that was so much more primitive than today. The first man to do it, and to take that giant leap, has now sadly passed on from this mortal coil; for all intents and purposes however, the name Neil Armstrong will be a name that reaches immortality. The fact that he appears to have been someone who had no interest in that particular aspect of his legacy simply makes that notion even more inspirational. - Kevin Mc