On July 20th, 1969 Neil Armstrong walked outside the lunar module, capturing the attention of the entire planet.

Eyewitness News Reporter John Rogers spoke with a veteran astronaut who recalled the significance of that day.

40 years ago, the entire world sat still while one man stood up and walked into history.

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," Neil Armstrong said on that memorable day.

"I was proud to be an American," says former Astronaut Norm Thagard.

Norm Thagard was 26 years old then.

He later took five missions into space... but he says the first moonwalk embodied all that America was capable of.

"It greatly advanced technology, not just for the narrow use of space but generally in our society," Thagard says.

Ken Kopczynski with the Tallahassee Astronomical Society says, "Miniaturization in medicine, computer technology. Also you have the intangibles. The philosophical- the idea that man has traveled out into the universe."

But, Thagard says that magic faded over the last 40 years.

He says kids are not as interested in math and science as they once were.

To regain that interest...that resolve...and to further test our capabilities, he says, we have to go to Mars.

"To accomplish a technologically difficult task like that forces us to do things, make advances that without the impetus to do it, we just wouldn't do it," Thagard says.

40 years ago, America proved anything was possible, and the same still rings true today.
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A sign of how things change over the years- America made it to the moon to beat the Russians in the Space Race.

In 1995, astronaut Norm Thagard was the first American to ride up in a Russian spacecraft.