Niel Armstrong on the Moon Landing

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.