For the last couple of days I’ve been regularly visiting WeChooseTheMoon.org, which has been streaming the original audio of the Apollo 11 mission “in real time” in honor of its 40th anniversary. I’ve also been following along occasionally with the transcript.

Kottke has posted a slew of links in honor of Apollo 11.

I don’t remember this much hoopla on previous anniversaries — or maybe I’m just more into it this year.

It’s easy to think that the present is superior to the past. In 1969 there was no personal computer, no cellphone, no Internet, no DNA testing. In fact, your cellphone today has more computing power than the Apollo computers.

And yet humans were able to send other humans to the moon.

The most amazing thing science has ever accomplished happened four and a half years before I was born. Technology has advanced so far in the last four decades, but we haven’t surpassed Apollo. The Mars Rover is pretty exciting — and Voyager 1 is approaching the edge of the solar system and will hopefully survive long after humanity disappears — but nothing can match the moon landing.

Humans were able to send other humans to the moon. Forty years ago.