Neil Armstrong Talks a Little About the Moon

Very little, but more than he's done in nearly the entire time since the 1969 landing that made him the first man to walk on the surface of the moon:

Every schoolchild knows that the "small step for man" and the "giant leap for mankind" are words uttered by Neil Armstrong during the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing. But now the famously reclusive astronaut has made a rare foray into the public arena to give an answer to a puzzling question: having gone all that way at such vast expense, why were the steps and leaps so few?

The subject arose when science blogger Robert Krulwich mused on his National Public Radio page about why Armstrong and crewmate Buzz Aldrin had covered an area barely larger than a football pitch. "The trip was a 'leap' to be sure, a fantastic accomplishment," he wrote. "But the first Moon explorers explored an astonishingly small area." There it might have rested.

But much to Krulwich's surprise, he got an answer – and from the commander himself. In an emailed response, Armstrong, who at 80 is still campaigning to have Nasa resume its exploration of the lunar surface, said there were multiple reasons for the small footprint of that first landing, not least among them nervousness about how well their water-cooled suits would work.

There's more at the link. Armstrong has always been a fascinating individual. He could have had the highest profile of just about anyone who ever went to space, but chose to keep to himself and stay out of the limelight. Many other astronauts were unable or unwilling to do that.