Apollo 11 crew visits with Obama

WASHINGTON – The same question that could have been asked 40 years ago moments after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon is still being asked today: Now what?

On the 40th anniversary of man’s first moon landing, the Apollo 11 crew met with President Barack Obama, who used the opportunity to talk about inspiration and science and math education. He didn’t talk about going anywhere in space, not the moon or Mars.

Obama said he wanted to use Monday’s anniversary of the Apollo moon landing to show that “math and science are cool again.”

“The touchstone for excellence in exploration and discovery is always going to be represented by the men of Apollo 11,” Obama said. He said their work sparked “innovation, the drive, the entrepreneurship, the creativity back here on Earth.”

That’s not what the men who went to the moon had in mind.

Earlier in the day, seven Apollo astronauts, including Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin, used a news conference to talk about their desire to go to Mars and not linger on the moon as long as NASA plans.

“All of us here are pretty much convinced that Mars is a goal to shoot for,” said Tom Stafford, commander of Apollo 10, which orbited the moon and tested the lunar module.

Obama emphasized the humanity part of Apollo 11, though, saying the three-man crew – Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins – “at great risk oftentimes and with great danger, was somehow able to lift our sights, not just here in the United States but around the world.”

For his part, Obama said he wanted to make sure that when another generation looks to the sky, NASA “is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey.”