MOON WALK WAS AN UNFORGETTABLE EVENT

The image of men gently gliding across the lunar surface shines bright as moonlight in the mind of Southeast Missouri State University professor and astronomer Craig Joseph.

He was a teenager living in Canton, Ohio, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969.

Twenty-five years later, Joseph still remembers the wonder of it all.

"I was just a dumb kid getting interested in science," he said.

Joseph recalled watching the moon walk on television, viewing the grand adventure through the eyes of the astronauts. "It almost felt like being there myself," he said.

As one who was reared on the "Star Trek" television series, the first moon walk sparked his interest in astronomy.

For many Cape Girardeau residents, the Apollo 11 moon walk was as unforgettable.

John Blue was editor of the Southeast Missourian newspaper at the time. "I remember watching it on TV and seeing Neil Armstrong step off the landing module," Blue said. "You saw it with awe, the fact that man could do something like this.

"It was just beyond imagination. It was science fiction come to life."

Blue's Southeast Missourian reported: "Lights burned late and the hazy glow of television sets beamed out from Cape Girardeau windows Sunday night as, by the thousands, residents hovered over their television sets to be an earthly part of man's landing on the moon."

The newspaper said there was little traffic on the streets that afternoon and evening, and rental of television sets was at a premium.

Appliance store owner Richard Flentge still recalls the heavy demand for televisions. "We probably rented out more than 100 TV sets. Everybody wanted to see the moon shot and the moon walk."

Linda Godwin was a student at Jackson High School. She and her parents watched the historic event from their Oak Ridge-area home. Twenty-two years later, Astronaut Linda Godwin traveled into space aboard the shuttle Atlantis.

Cape Girardeau attorney Rush Limbaugh was 77 years old when Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Limbaugh, now 102, remembers watching the historic walk on television.

As a child growing up on a farm in the Sedgewickville area, Limbaugh could not have imagined that men would one day walk on the moon. "About the only thing I thought about was the man in the moon," he quipped.

Armstrong and Aldrin were only the first astronauts to leave their imprints on the moon's dusty surface. Ten others followed.

Joseph said the first moon walk was one of the defining moments of the 20th century and of human history. "I think the human race sort of came of age in the late 1960s," he said. "Before that time, we had been bound to the Earth.

"In July 1969, for the very first time, human beings set foot on a totally alien world and looked up into the sky and saw the Earth."

Joseph said the moon walk was a national goal, brought about by the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The Soviets had the first satellite and the first man in space. The United States didn't want to be second best.

It took 420,000 workers, $24 billion and 21 manned space flights over eight years to get those first footsteps on the moon.

It also took seven astronauts' lives, three snuffed out in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire and four in plane crashes.

Joseph said nothing in the space program has captured the public's imagination like that of the first moon walk.

"It really saddens me that the space program now has really taken a down slide," he said. "It is just nothing like what it used to be."

Joseph said it would take a voyage to Mars for the space program to recapture the national excitement that resulted from man's first walk on the moon.

The excitement of the moon walk still echoes in the words written by Blue in an editorial on July 21, 1969: "A thousand years from now, so long as man exists, these pictures will be shown to succeeding generations. They were living history that will live forever. It was a day to remember. Who can ever forget it?"

MOONWALK AT A GLANCE

* Apollo 11 launched July 16, 1969 and splashed down on July 24.

* The Eagle landed on the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 p.m. EDT on July 20.

* A record 500 million television viewers watched Neil Armstrong lift his left foot off the last ladder rung and lower it onto the lunar soil. The time was 10:56 p.m. EDT. Buzz Aldrin emerged minutes later.

* The astronauts unveiled on the moon a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

* It took 420,000 workers, $24 billion and 21 manned space flights to get those first footsteps on the moon -- six Mercury, 10 Gemini, five Apollo.