Moonlanding memories

Tracy Knauss has newspapers from all 50 states for July 20, 1969 -- the day man first walked on the moon.

June Scobee Rodgers lost her husband when the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1986.

Astronaut Tammy Jernigan looked down upon Earth while walking in space.

Each of these Chattanoogans has a personal history with the space program and -- on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's lunar landing -- each worries about the future of space exploration.

Funds to NASA are being cut; the shuttles are being mothballed and there are reports that the International Space Station will go tumbling into the Pacific Ocean -- on purpose -- within 10 years.

"The space program provides extraordinary inspiration," Dr. Jernigan said. "We are falling behind in science and math education. Having taught children, I know how much it motivates them to think outside themselves."

For Ms. Scobee Rodgers, the continuation of the space program has become her personal mission.

"The loss of the Challenger and my husband and friends was the most traumatic thing that has happened to me in my life, but it made me even more dedicated to the space program, and to the advancement of the science and math needed to improve the program," she said. "They couldn't complete their mission, but I could."

WHERE THEY WERE

All three remember exactly where they were when they heard Neil Armstrong say, "The Eagle has landed."

Ms. Scobee Rodgers sat on the couch, trying to keep her two young children awake long enough to watch astronaut Armstrong step out onto the lunar surface about 11 p.m. Eastern time.

"It was breathtaking. It was the largest audience ever to view a television up to that time," Ms. Scobee Rodgers said. "All the cultures from all the nations around the planet watched. It made Americans swell with pride. If we could put a man on the moon, we could do anything."

Mr. Knauss, a 19-year-old camp counselor at the time, set up his TV set at the Camp Geneva Glen summer camp in Colorado.

"I brought my tape recorder and television set and found a utility building that had electricity," he said. "Before accepting the job, I had asked for the day off in writing so that I could watch it all."

Aware that this day would go down in history, Mr. Knauss also ordered newspapers from all 50 states through a distributor almost a month before the landing. No one understood his odd behavior, but Mr. Knauss paid in cash and kept his receipt.

"The next day (after the landing), I called them and told them I had a truck ready to pick up my papers," he said. "The manager told me that he wasn't sure he could get them all. I told him that if he didn't find them he would talk to my lawyer -- which, of course, I didn't have. Sure enough, though, he managed to get them all."

Since then, he has had all the newspapers professionally bound, he said.

"I knew that it was the most remarkable technological achievement of our time," he said. "We were standing on the shoulders of giants. We were following scientists like Keplar and Copernicus."

While Mr. Knauss preserved his memories, Dr. Jernigan was attending elementary school.

"I remember the moon landing," she said. "I remember looking up at the moon and being fascinated by the idea that there were people up there."

Since that day, Dr. Jernigan has seen a view of Earth similar to what the crew of Apollo 11 saw. In 1985, Dr. Jernigan became one of the youngest women selected as an astronaut by NASA. She has flown in five space missions, logged 1,512 hours in space, and spent seven hours and 55 minutes on a space walk, according to NASA's Web site.

"There's nothing like that first flight, the first ride into space, the first view of the Earth," she said. "There was no time to be afraid. You have to be focused on the shuttle systems and monitors."

A SHAKY FUTURE

But further explorations by NASA are on shaky ground. In the last several months, limits on funding and a critical public have caused NASA to make cutbacks that worry many space enthusiasts.

The astronaut class of 2009 will be the last set to fly on a space shuttle due to the planned retirement of the shuttles in 2010.

NASA announced plans to de-orbit the International Space Station in 2016, the Washington Post reported. If the plan goes through, the 654,000-pound space station, which has been in production for more than a decade, will hurtle through Earth's atmosphere and into the Pacific Ocean, the paper reported.

"For those that are skeptics, I would say that the greatest risk in space exploration is to take no risk at all," Ms. Scobee Rodgers said. "If we don't have vision or dreams for discovery we will never grow. Even more important than the technology is the spark of the imagination that encourages the spirit of adventure and discovery."