When the Eagle landed on the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969, humanity and science were forever changed. Science reached the milestone of humans walking on a surface they’d never been to before, a natural satellite outside our own atmosphere. To my mind, we’re still waiting, 40 years later, to top that. In the spirit of exploration, the only thing we’re close to doing that would top that would be the discovery of extraterrestrial life, and I think, particularly with the upcoming launch of Curiosity, we’ll see that in my lifetime.

Humanity changed forever, for many of the same reasons, but also for one big other: the coverage of the event. At the time (I’ll admit, I wasn’t born yet), when you talked about watching the news, you talked about watching Walter Cronkite. So much so, in fact, that like “The Tonight Show” was most commonly known as “Johnny Carson,” so the “CBS Nightly News” was known as “Walter.”

On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, and with Walter Cronkite passing just a few days ago, there’s one of those beautiful coincidences that we can celebrate both the achievement and its narrator.