Well, this doesn’t happen every day.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s walk across the lunar surface back in 1969 and wondered, how come they walked such a modest distance? Less than a hundred yards from their lander?

Today Neil Armstrong wrote in to say, here are the reasons:

• It was really, really hot on the moon, 200 degrees Fahrenheit. We needed protection.

• We were wearing new-fangled, water-cooled uniforms and didn’t know how long the coolant would last.

• We didn’t know how far we could go in our space suits.

• NASA wanted us to conduct our experiments in front of a fixed camera.

• We [meaning Neil] cheated just a little, and very briefly bounded off to take pictures of some…

The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years. Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third; of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration.

America’s space accomplishments earned the respect and admiration of the world. Science probes were unlocking the secrets of the cosmos; space technology was providing instantaneous worldwide communication; orbital sentinels were helping man understand the vagaries of nature. Above…