The Moon is quite possibly the least green object in our planet’s general vicinity, but that does not mean that it has not always held a certain fascination for those who gaze up at it at night. So close and so unattainable. So barren and yet so beautiful. It’s unattainable for most of us, but an elite club of only 12 humans has ever set foot on that gray and forbidding world. Over the weekend, the first one ever passed away at the age of 82. With his passing, that leaves only eight people who have set foot on another world, all of them over the age of 70. Neil Armstrong was a reluctant hero and, like his crewmember Buzz Aldrin, was ill-equipped emotionally to handle the resulting fame and accolades, and thus stayed out of the spotlight. But such is the nature of fame. Armstrong remains, for me, one of America’s truly great heroes, and anyone who thinks the moonwalk was a cakewalk should read Craig Nelson’s compelling history of the Apollo program, Rocket Men. The odds of Apollo 11’s success were not great and much of the mission was spent troubleshooting. And anyone who would willingly strap themselves on top of a giant missile and be shot 250,000 miles off the surface of the Earth and go literally where no man had gone before may be a little crazy, but possesses a courage and fearlessness I could only ever dream about. The right stuff indeed. And to have been willing to do this after the Gemini VIII incident! Armstrong was the commanding pilot and, while attempting to dock with an Agena target vehicle, the spacecraft began to spin wildly (“roll” as they call it), up to one revolution per second. Armstrong and pilot David Scott nearly passed out from the torque—had that happened, they would have been as lost as Major Tom. (Think about spinning around and around at such a velocity—heck, I freak out when the airplane I’m on encounters mild turbulence. I am a colossal wuss compared to guys like Armstrong.) As Rocket Men details in dramatic fashion, the lunar landing itself was fraught with tension, plagued by computer errors, and a landing area that turned out to be strewn with boulders. It was Armstrong’s quick thinking and semi-manual piloting that got him and Aldrin safely on the Moon’s surface—with 25 seconds of fuel left. Once down, the rest was history. (Why was Armstrong the first on the Moon? Short answer: he was closer to the door.) Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy also reflects upon that “one small step” and “one giant leap.” He asks, “will there someday be a holiday in his honor?” It would be highly fitting. Blogger Charles Pierce at Esquire points out that there are now only eight men left who know what it’s like to set foot on another world—and it’s conceivable that within my lifetime that firsthand knowledge will be gone forever:

It will all be for videotape and digital libraries, for historians and, if we're very lucky, for poets, as well. But there will be nobody alive who actually knows. Not a single one of our fellow humans, anywhere on the Earth. That knowledge will be as dead in the world as Columbus is. One fewer person on the Earth was able to look up at the moon on Sunday night. What he thought when he looked at, night after night, is a perspective lost to all but eight old men. Sooner or later, there will be none of them left. On that day, like today, we should mourn for what we once thought we were.

And perhaps mourn for a time in this country when we could pull together as one nation and achieve great things, despite the odds against, and despite the expense. A time when we could do anything, when the entire universe was ours to play in. Ever since the first humans came out of the cave, we have been explorers. The human spirit thrives on great voyages of discovery and great achievements. I’m talking real Big Picture stuff, not just another slick little gadget. And I’m not just talking about space exploration—although that’s about as Big Picture as you can get—but solving seemingly insoluble problems for the betterment of all humankind, such as the environmental issues that face us today and will surely worsen until our children’s children’s children curse us with a vehemence as intense and fiery as the Sun. Somehow, in the 43 years since that July day in 1969, when two brave souls hurtled toward the Moon and a third watched from on high, we lost that spirit, the will to achieve great things—or to even try anymore. We have become consumed by cynicism and despair and divisiveness, and I certainly hope that spirit has not died with Neil Armstrong, still flickers somewhere in our souls. And I surely hope it’s not too late to get it back, or I fear our hearts shall become as bleak and barren as the Moon itself.