Where were you when man first walked on the moon?

For those who've grown up with the frequently ignored flights of the space shuttle, a trip to the moon may seem like no big deal.

But 40 years ago, the Apollo 11 mission that first put man on the moon marked a permanent shift in our relation to the cosmos. No longer were humans bound to our planet.

President John Kennedy had set the goal of reaching the moon in 1961. But it was a dream as old as the first humans to gaze in wonder at the night sky.

So when Neil Armstrong left the first foot print in that gray, alien dust, and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," we shook our heads in amazement and agreement.

The Daily Herald asked some of the Chicago area's scientific luminaries to share their memories of the event.

Astronaut James Lovell

Lovell is best known as pilot of Apollo 13, an ill-fated mission the following year that never reached the moon. He cowrote a book about it that led to the Tom Hanks movie "Apollo 13." He also piloted Gemini 7 and 12, the precursors to Apollo, and Apollo 8, the first craft to orbit the moon.

For the lunar landing, Lovell was at Mission Control in Houston. Everyone held their breath until touchdown, then burst into applause and waved American flags.

Lovell admitted to perhaps a twinge of jealousy, but also foreboding, because the astronauts were still in danger.

"We celebrated, but not completely, because the mission was not completed," he said. "We still had a long way to go to get three people safely back to Earth. We didn't break out the champagne."

Time has given him perspective on the whole series of Apollo missions to the moon.

"At the time we did those things," he said, "we didn't know whether history would consider them momentous, or go on to something else.

"Now, I feel we did accomplish quite a bit to a human understanding of the real position of Earth in our universe."

Lovell, now 81, retired from the space program in 1973, and opened a restaurant now run by his son, called Lovells of Lake Forest.

Tickets are sold out for Lovell's appearance Wednesday with Apollo 11 lunar pilot Buzz Aldrin sharing their memories at the Adler Planetarium.

Shawn Carlson, director of the SciTech Hands On Museum in Aurora

When Apollo 11 first kicked up dust on the moon, Carlson was 9, and watching every second of the mission from his family's living room in Anaheim, Calif.

"I remember how thrilling and incredibly exciting the whole thing was, and how suspenseful," he said. "There really was the possibility they might crash. We all knew if anything significant went wrong, they'd be marooned there. There was no hope of rescue.

"That added to the drama. They had to get everything exactly right."

Carlson already wanted to be an astronaut. He had made wooden mock-ups of rockets twice his height, and his mother always made him "space cakes" for his birthday, decorated with astronauts trekking on alien planets.

Though Carlson said he grew up terrified by an alcoholic and abusive environment, the moon landing inspired him to do something to make the world a better place.

He earned a Ph.D. in physics, and won a MacArthur Fellowship to teach science. Now at age 49, he leads SciTech Museum in Aurora educating children about science, with its own rocket launcher, powered by a bike pump.

He believes we as a culture need to celebrate heroes of science, as we did with Apollo 11.

"The space program has sort of drifted off into ancient history, and it's a terrible shame."

Adler Planetarium President Paul Knappenberger

As an astronomer, Knappenberger had a unique view of Apollo 11: he tracked the entire mission by telescope.

He was 26 and worked at the FernBank Science Center in Atlanta, which had the largest publicly accessible telescope at the time.

He and his colleagues attached an image intensifier and a high-quality television camera to it to record the spacecraft's movements.

It was just a bead of light on their screen, but they could see some details, like four points of light shooting off it as the nose cone separated and flew away on lift off.

NBC found out about their rig, and broadcast the exclusive images, which ended up being seen by millions of people around the world.

They lost the image as it reached the glare of the moon, but watched like everyone else on TV.

"I think we all realized that history was being made," he said. "This was the first time humans had left the earth and set foot on another world. Up until that time that was pure science fiction, and now it was reality."

Now 66, Knappenberger's planetarium has events all month to celebrate the Apollo 11 anniversary, including new high-resolution photos of the moon from a current NASA mission.

Science fiction writer Frederik Pohl

At the time, Pohl was living in New Jersey and watched on TV.

"I watched as many shots of moon coverage as I could... I don't know how to describe it. (The moon is) a place in our universe that people are always looking at, but seeing people actually walk on it and leave their footprints and leave their machines was an earthshaking experience for me. It was just a thrill."

Now 89, Pohl has won just about every award in science fiction, lives in Palatine, an still hopes to see humans take the next giant leap in space.

"I think the 40th anniversary is well worth commemorating, but that was 40 years ago, and what have we done since then? The United States citizens would prefer to have a human being go to a different planet and we simply haven't done that... I think it's a pity. We could have at least been on one other planet by now."

Astronaut Dan Tani

Tani, 48, of Lombard, has flown two space shuttle missions to the International Space Station.

But he still remembers watching the first moon landing on TV when he was 8 and visiting cousins in California.

"It was really cool, you know, and it was sort of the envy of any kid who was interested in exploring and discovery and stuff, so I certainly got inspired by the fact that humans can build a machine that could go half a million miles and you can walk around and get out and then come back. But there are the people who say they remember watching the landing and knowing they wanted to be an astronaut, but to be honest with you, that really wasn't my situation."

"I would say the biggest sense is sort of what a shame it is that it's been 40 years and we have not gone further than the moon - in fact we haven't even gone back to the moon in 35 years. ... It's a shame we haven't had anyone on Mars."

"The biggest kick for me is to see Buzz and Neil and those Apollo guys on TV and to see those guys get interviewed and hear them reminisce about those days ... The anniversary is a great time to reflect on the event and also the people. I think not only the two people that stepped out of the lunar module 40 years ago, but the probably 200,000 people that contributed to the space program up to that moment that all felt a part of that moment of history. And I want to make sure we honor not just the walkers but the hundreds of thousands that supported them and tested their suits and did everything necessary to help them."

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