Walking On The Moon

The death of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has prompted a bout of soul-searching about America's national destiny as well as mourning for an icon of the 20th century.
As tributes continued to pour in on Sunday for the former astronaut who died aged 82 there were also expressions of regret that no human has been back to the moon since 1972, just three years after Armstrong set foot on it and gave his famous "giant leap for mankind" speech. (...)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/26/neil-armstrong-passing-us-yearning-glory

(...) The Apollo 11 mission capped a tumultuous and consequential decade. The ’60s in America had started with such promise, with the election of a youthful president, mixed with the ever-present anxieties of the cold war. Then it touched greatness in the civil rights movement, only to implode in the years of assassinations and burning city streets and campus riots. But before it ended, human beings had reached that longtime symbol of the unreachable.

The moonwalk lasted 2 hours and 19 minutes, long enough to let the astronauts test their footing in the fine and powdery surface — Mr. Armstrong noted that his boot print was less than an inch deep — and set up a television camera and scientific instruments and collect rock samples. (...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/science/space/neil-armstrong-dies-first-man-on-moon.html?_r=1