‘One small step …’

Monday, July 20, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

We take for granted things that were once considered impossible. History witnessed pilot Charles Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean, runner Roger Bannister cracking the 4-minute mile, and mountain climber Edmund Hillary conquering Mount Everest.

All were tremendous achievements, but nothing was quite like the technological milestone that humankind crossed on this day 40 years ago when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon and declared: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge that Americans could land on the moon before the end of the decade, NASA scientists, engineers and astronauts set out to fulfill that dream. They weren’t alone.

A nation dreamed as well, and there was a collective will to succeed. The payoff was a sense of national pride.

Americans were driven in part by the desire to beat the Soviets to the moon as the space race had become an integral part of the Cold War. The moon landing also represented America’s frontier spirit as embodied by early 19th century explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and in later generations that established settlements in the West.

An amazing facet of the Apollo 11 mission, which included astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, is that it occurred when most Americans were still living relatively simple lives from a technological standpoint. Internet access, text messaging and portable MP3 players were beyond imagination.

Once barriers are broken, though, repeat performances are rarely greeted with as much awe. That could very well be the case for any future space mission, save for landing astronauts on Mars. Today, we even take for granted that we share an international space station with the very Russians we battled for orbital supremacy in the 1960s.

No matter where we go from here, the lunar landing on July 20, 1969, will always hold a special place in the annals of humankind.