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Joyce joined The Tampa Tribune as senior editor for metro in 2005 and later helped launch TBO.com’s continuous news desk. He has worked as an editor and reporter in Arizona, Kentucky, Virginia, Idaho and Stuart, Fla. Email

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Today’s number: 40, as in years since the other moon walk

Posted Jul 11, 2009 by Dennis Joyce

Updated Jul 11, 2009 at 07:02 PM

Now there’s Google Moon to guide us around the places man has visited up there.

But 40 years ago this month — on July 20, 1969 — Neil Armstrong couldn’t be sure what to expect when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.

Turns out it went well, except for the slip-up on his historic first words (“One small step for ‘A’ man” would have made more sense) and six Apollo missions would visit the moon, through 1972 — Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

As shuttle Endeavour awaits a lightning-delayed launch Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center, the nation’s space program lacks the focus it had then — in part because so many more options present themselves.

Five shuttle missions are planned before the curtain falls on the shuttle in September 2010. This would bring total shuttle missions to 134 since the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981.

That’s enough for the nation to have grown jaded with space flight. But have a look at NASA’s multimedia tribute to the first steps on the moon, including audio of Neil Armstrong’s conversation with mission control, and it may restore your sense of wonder.

If you’re just a little over 40, or well beyond, it will also take you back to one of those benchmark moments in your life.

As one controller tells Armstrong, “I guess you’re the only person around who doesn’t have TV coverage of the scene.”