Forty years ago, 10 words beamed 2,40,000 miles to Earth from the Moon - and forever changed the course of human exploration.
During the final summer of the turbulent 60s, the voyage of Apollo 11 brought an entire globe together to look up at a full moon and watch.
Beginning in the early days of the Kennedy administration and for nearly a decade, America's space program committed to landing a man on the moon.
This commitment was conceived not only as science, but also as a Cold War political struggle against the Soviet Union.
Called the "Apollo program", all resources were devoted to landing man on the moon.
An early setback in the program left three astronauts dead and forced NASA to rethink the science. So, Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969 with three astronauts on board -- Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins.
Collins stayed behind in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the lunar surface. After a four-day trip, the Apollo astronauts arrived at their destination.
When it came time to set the spaceship Eagle down in the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, Armstrong improvised and manually piloted the ship past an area littered with boulders.
Over half a billion people around the world watched Armstrong step onto the lunar surface. His boot print stayed on the moon's surface where no wind will wipe it away.
Aldrin stepped out 19 minutes later and described what he sees around him on the moon.
"So we're there. It's magnificent desolation. Everybody, except the three of us, is up there, out there, back there on that object in the sky called Earth," said Aldrin recalling the historic moment.
The pair explored the lunar surface for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs.
On Earth, humans were transfixed by the spectacle beamed live into living rooms. Aldrin and Armstrong left behind an American flag and several other items, including the landing pod of their lander.
Four days later, the crew splashed down in the Pacific.
Armstrong's "small step" stood on the shoulders of thousands of Americans who worked in the new, fledgling space agency.
What put man on the moon 40 years ago was an audacious and public effort of engineering skill, management know-how and a public commitment.
A new national pride set in for Americans, and along with it, a momentary global solidarity for the achievement. Forty years later, the future of the space travel for the United States is at a crossroads.
The shuttle program is scheduled to end in six years, but development of the replacement space vehicle is behind schedule.
There's no commercial interest in going back to the moon, and scientists believe the Apollo missions brought back enough samples that there's not much more science to be done.
The current mission will complete construction of the International Space Station and only supply missions will remain for the aging shuttle fleet.
