Celebrate Apollo 11’s 40th as SPACE.com Turns 10

[doublehelix]

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon to make history as the first humans to set foot on another world. The moon landing also holds a special significance for SPACE.com, which launched 10 years ago today to chronicle modern space exploration and research.

In just a decade, the world has seen new nations enter the realm of human spaceflight, the 10-year construction of the International Space Station and the discovery of hundreds of strange new worlds circling alien stars light-years from Earth.

As SPACE.com celebrates its 10th birthday, we invite you, our readers, to weigh in on what you believe has been the most significant space achievement in the last decade. We look forward to reading your comments!

 

[lowrieder]

The discovery of past liquid water on Mars by the NASA Mars rovers has to be at the top of the list. It opens the possibility that life could have survived there.

 

[kbmtexas]

I was 8 years old on that wonderful night in 1969. My family was on vacation in California, we were staying at The Highlands Inn in Carmel. The rooms were in little cabins up a hillside with a main lodge/lobby and resteraunt building at the base. As I recall there were no TV's in the rooms so everybody was gathered in the lobby to watch the landing with Walter Cronkike commentating on the TV. I don't know where my Mom, Dad or siblings were, but I was glued to the TV sitting next to an old man of no aquaintance and as those infamous word came through, "Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed", everybody cheered but this old man was crying! he must of been in his mid 70's. Later in life I realized that he must of been about about 7-8 years old when the Wright Brothers made their historic first flight! WOW, imagine the things that man saw in his lifetime! I felt sure that I as watched Apollo 17 return from the last landing at the age of 11 that we would certainly be on Mars by 2000. Too bad we lost our way. I am still hopeful that maybe one day I will be that old man crying as the first Mars landing occurs, and another 8 year old boy will be captured, as I was, by the magic of Human Spaceflight!

I feel the most significant acheivment in the last decade is the construction of the ISS. I pray that it remains the centerpeice of Human LEO activities for decades to come. I am sad to see the Shuttle retire next year, I wish they could keep one or two orbiters flight worthy for one or two flights a year in support of the station while the CEV is being developed to return us to the moon and beyond, NASA is going to miss the Shuttle's capabilities, I guarantee!

 

[Rigel80]

i have a couple of things, the WMAP showing the cosmic microwave background was enormous to me it proved alot of things and it was fun to learn about , also the construction of the ISS is big for not only the usa but possibly the world and it showed that maybe someday this world will come together and explore the solar system and the universe.

lastly for me personally the internet because with out it i would have never got into space, space.com, and nasa tv, watching shuttle launches never get old and even lit a fire under me to travel down and watch a launch in person, the controlled chaos that goes on is amazing nothing tops it.