It was stated simply enough, but it was never thought to be simple. Audacious, maybe..outlandish, even..but never simple. The young President stood up and said that we would send a man to the moon and return him safely within the decade. Just like that. Of course, he said it would be hard, but he didn't know the half of it. He didn't want to know; he'd leave that to the experts who had already told him privately that it could be done. Now they had to go out and do it.

Apollo was built from the scraps of World War II. Technology captured from the Germans sparked thought among American engineers who began experimenting with rocket-powered aircraft while others concentrated on jets. By the time John Kennedy reached for the moon, there was already a substantial amount of data and materials on the shelf from which the lunar program could borrow.

So they built a three-tiered program: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo..the first two feeding the design of the third. Mercury proved that a human could be equipped to survive in space. Gemini showed the human could steer himself somewhere. Apollo put it all together and did just that.

But whatever it was, it was glorious.

The test programs were methodical and tedious. Each step was examined and restudied within the time constraints. Mistakes were catastrophies, successes were triumphs. The schedule was everything and the public was paying attention, so the politicians were never far away.

Armstrong started down the ladder at 10:56 P.M., EDT. He was seen by a vast television audience and heard world-wide on radio as he gingerly swung his foot toward the Lunar Surface, saying: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

And the world changed, never to see itself the same.

The plaque below is fastened to the forward landing leg of Apollo 11's Lunar Module. It says that no matter what circumstances caused us to go to the moon, when we finally did it, we did it in the name of humanity and not just for us. It's a noble thought, but it may have been a little before its time.

Apollo 11 was the end product of an effort that may have surplanted a war. The resources and the energy that went into the leap to the moon were the effort of a single nation, spent in a contest designed to show the rest of the world who had the best technology, the best engineers, the best of everything desirable. We..we and the Russians..were determined to show everybody else who was Top Dog. And it was a near thing. The Russians produced a lot of firsts: first satellite, first animal in orbit, first human in orbit, first spacewalker. The schedules tottered back and forth with advances and setbacks. At the very last minute, the then-Soviet Union tried to one-up us with a probe to the moon that might have gotten there a little ahead of Apollo 11 if things had worked out. They didn't.

The plaque is still there, probably as bright and shiny as the day it arrived. Perhaps someday soon, other explorers will land there and look for it. With no weather on the moon, it's likely they'll find everyhing just the way the Moonwalkers left it in 1969. Certainly, the rudimentary instruments they left can still do a job if required. Perhaps that will happen, too, although in the intervening years the technology has improved exponentially...another of Apollo's great legacies.

Going back to the Moon is in the cards for the human race. Maybe that plaque will have more meaning now that the competitors have learned to work together in space, bringing other nations with them. Certainly, if the cost is to be counted, a multi-nation effort makes good sense, just as the Moon itself makes such good sense.

We are explorers..all of us. Our planet is ideally situated for wider exploration of the universe because the Moon is where it is. If you need to learn how to live on another celestial body long-term, the Moon is your training ground, just three days away. If, eventually, we want to go to Mars (and I think we will), then the Moon is where we'll go to perfect the habitat we'll take with us and to learn the techniques for trekking beyond the horizon. The Moon will eventually be a staging base for Mars and beyond. It will be an ideal communications station as well as astronomy base, too, having no atmosphere to create interference. Getting supplies to and from such a remote station will be a long pole in the tent..water is heavy, and carrying it across the distance will be very difficult. It's hoped that ice will be found in some of the deep craters at the Moon's south pole to relieve that burden. That kind of analysis is well underway and, as the plaque alludes, the time has come for "all mankind" to find the solutions..not just one nation acting in its own interest.