The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

Neil Armstrong was probably one of the most human guys I've ever known in my life.

I was a child of World War Two . I saw films of pilots taking off from aircraft carriers and decided that was the only thing I wanted to do. And it had to be flying from sea carriers. Airfields were not enough.

Another hundred years may pass before we understand the true significance of Apollo. Lunar exploration was not the equivalent of an American pyramid, some idle monument to technology, but more of a Rosetta stone, a key to unlocking dreams as yet undreamed.

Once I finally stepped on the moon, no matter what was to come of the next three days - or the rest of my life - nobody could take those steps from me. People ask how long will they be there, and I say forever, however long forever is, like my daughter’s initials that I scribbled in the sand [TDC for Tracy Dawn Cernan].

The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

The moon is bland in color. I call it shades of gray. You know, the only color we see is what we bring or the Earth, which is looking down upon us all the time. And to find orange soil on the moon was a surprise.