How did we get so far into Space? On the occasion of the fifty years since the first moon landing, the renowned astrophysicist Dionysis Simopoulos narrates our journey to the stars and reminisces about milestones in his personal journey.

As all of humanity watched on television or listened on the radio, the first man was ready to descend and walk on the strange ground of the Moon. In Washington, the clocks showed 4 minutes before 11 PM on July 20, 1969, and in Athens it was almost 5:00 the next morning. That night, on the dusty surface of the Moon, a human footprint was imprinted for the first time, becoming the symbol of "one giant leap for mankind." That moment was so significant and historic that it can only be compared to the moment of creation.

For, as it was so vividly written back then, "that moment was greater than the first use of fire, greater than the invention of the wheel, and greater than the utilization of the plow. It was more significant than the travels of Marco Polo and Columbus, and even greater than the splitting of the atom." Because since then, our world and its history are not confined to just one planet. Because our world is now the entire Space, and our history is as vast and open as the whole Universe.

At the end of '68, I was notified by the Greek Consulate in New Orleans that a newspaper in Athens was seeking someone like me to cover the space missions, and naturally, I accepted immediately, with the only compensation being my expenses and the airline shipment from the newspaper, which arrived two days after its publication.

During the first two missions (Apollo 9 and 10) that I covered, I was limited for budgetary reasons to visit the Houston Space Center and send my reports to Athens from there. I was not willing to miss the new launch of Apollo 11 from Cape Kennedy. I arrived at the Kennedy Space Center the day before the launch and tried, for obvious reasons, to find other Greek journalists accredited to witness this historic launch. However, I did not find any officially accredited journalists from our country other than myself!