The image materialized at 10:56:20 p.m. from an inhospitable place and a distance of 250,801 miles. It was grainy. It was irresistible. It marked the first stride of a wondrous journey that ultimately led nowhere.

It has been exactly 40 years since astronaut Neil Armstrong climbed down a ladder and stirred the powdery surface of the moon. Four days earlier, he had awakened in Florida.

"That's one small step for man," he said, "one giant leap for mankind."

During the next three years, 11 other astronauts, all American, walked on the moon. And that was that. Humans never again touched a distant celestial body.

Today, there's no lack of ambition and goal-setting at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is mapping long-range plans for a lunar base and eventually a human mission to Mars.

But funding falls far short of what will be needed, Congressional support is anemic, and many ask if Americans -- pummeled by economic woe, burdened by profound security threats, preoccupied with their iPods and their BlackBerrys -- are still capable of being rallied to a cause that once galvanized the nation.

Inspired by the vision and words of President John F. Kennedy, the American space program catapulted from serial launch pad failures to a successful lunar landing in only eight years. The Apollo moon project cost $25 billion (the equivalent of at least $140 billion now), employed 390,000 Americans and provided the nation with a com- mon goal during a difficult time.

When a machine built in the United States landed on the moon carrying Arm- strong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, 500 million people back on Earth monitored the event, 35,000 base- ball fans at Yankee Stadium stood and sang America the Beautiful, and CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, a consummate professional nearly impossible to rattle, could muster only this: "Man on the moon. Oh, jeez. Oh, boy. Whew. Boy. Oh, boy."

‘NERDY' CAREERS

But that was then, and this is now.

Even Collins, Apollo 11's command module pilot, bemoans what he calls ‘‘NASA's creeping pace'' and other shortcomings that will complicate a return to the moon and any human missions that press deeper into space.

"We definitely have a national problem in that kids seem to be going after money rather than what they consider ‘nerdy' careers," Collins said in remarks released for the 40th anniversary of his mission. "Other countries are out- stripping us in the quality and quantity of math and science grads, and this can only hurt in the long run."

Thus, while the space agency basks in the distant glow of an event that propelled the United States to the pinnacle of an increasingly techno- logical world, it also must fret about its own future.

RE-EVALUATION

As the Apollo 11 crew members gather in Washington this week, a panel formed by President Barack Obama to review NASA's spaceflight plans will be working nearby on a report due in August.

The nation's space shuttles, the aging aerospace tractor- trailers based on 1970s-era technology and incapable of reaching the moon, are scheduled to be permanently grounded by the end of the next year.

As a result, the panel's mandate is "everything from the fly-out of the shuttle to the International Space Station to new launch capabilities to potential landings possibly on the moon, possibly on Mars, possibly on asteroids or moons of Mars," said committee Chairman Norman Augustine.

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