CAPE CANAVERAL -- Maybe you no longer remind yourself to head outside and look north, hoping to catch the rockets' red glare or smoke contrail as a Space Shuttle lifts off. After more than 110 of the launches, many of us have grown blasé.

But no one was jaded in mid-July 1969, when mankind readied itself here at the Kennedy Space Center to reach beyond our planet and, for the first time, try to land on the moon.

Every American had already learned an odd new word -- astronaut -- and most knew the names of the three men who were about to waddle in their bulky white spacesuits from a converted RV to an elevator that would take them to the top of a 363-foot-tall Saturn V rocket. And from there, at long last, to the moon.

The approaching 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission is a perfect reason to re-live those moments -- or perhaps experience them for the first time -- at the Space Center's Visitors Complex. And in a public observance this July 16, Aldrin and three of the other 11 Earthlings who have walked on the moon will recall the experience as they stand beneath the largest attraction at the Visitors Complex, a Saturn V rocket left over when the Apollo program ended.

The rocket is suspended horizontally in the Apollo/Saturn V Center. That's also site of the Lunar Surface Theater, a multimedia re-enactment of the dramatic first landing of the spider-like Lunar Module, the Eagle, and Neil Armstrong's milestone walk on the surface.

''That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,'' he told the world. So it was.

Visitors to this huge building can also enter a full-scale mock-up of the early Mission Control launch room to observe a three-minute ''countdown'' at the computer consoles. Then an overhead screen plays a video of former astronaut Jim Lovell.

Relaxed in a blazer and sports shirt, Lovell says that the Saturn V ''is still the most-powerful, most-complex machine ever built. It could take you to another planet, I guess. I know, because I got to fly it to the moon, on Apollo 13. But that's another story,'' he says, smiling at the camera.

It's a disarming reference to a mission marked by a mechanical failure that threatened to doom Lovell and two colleagues to death in space.

Lovell tells his audience to exit toward the right. As the first viewers step through those doors, they stand almost beneath the engines of that Saturn V. Visitors still in the theater can hear the cries of ``Wow!''

This building also holds a moon rock that visitors can touch, a Lunar Rover and an Apollo Command Module.

SHUTTLE EXPERIENCE

Elsewhere at the complex, visitors can try the Shuttle Launch Experience. Developed with input from numerous astronauts, this theater simulates a lift-off. The experience is especially poignant in these final months of the space shuttle's life; the missions are slated to cease next year.

Walking through the familiar ''back-and-forth'' line, visitors watch videos of astronauts -- those shown totaled more than 20 Shuttle and two Apollo missions -- offering comments such as:

After the launch and everyone has run through their checklists (of chores), we all fight to get to the windows to look out.

And,

You're in this little tin can, sitting on top of a million pounds of thrust.

The five-minute simulation involves lots of shaking -- you must wear a seatbelt -- and noise. Then, after the ''engines'' have shut down, overhead panels open to reveal a view of Earth from orbit. It's as close to the real thing as most of us will ever get.

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