BOULDER, Colo. — At the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder, there are more than 75 shows this month to celebrate 50 years since the first manned lunar mission.
People can sit back, look up to the dome, and be absorbed in the whole deal, from liftoff to the famous "one small step" comment from Neil Armstrong, and everything step in between.
And while it's fascinating to look back, it's even more fascinating to look forward. That's what they're doing in other places on campus.
In a small lab at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, students are working with a small robot, a prototype of a bigger model they say will someday be on the moon setting up radio telescopes.
It's all part of future manned lunar missions, to make the moon a stepping stone for ventures to Mars and deep space.
CU's Dr. Jack Burns said it will be a whole new era, especially since technology is now light-years ahead of what it took to get Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon.
Burns points out that cell phones have about 1 million times more memory than the computers used by NASA in 1969. He said future space exploration is exciting for students at CU now, and for America.
And it's also pretty cool to watch those first steps on the moon 50 years ago, as we look to the future.
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