Moonlight over Georgia

Two planets and the moon visible with the naked eyes pic.twitter.com/x6GNdc6kxf

— Lem (@Lemang01) June 21, 2015

Man first walked on the Moon 45 years ago today

"There was little sleep for the more than 3,000 news personnel at the Houston Space Center during those two historic days. Meals were hasty. Pressure was immense. Time flew," AP staffer Richard Beene wrote in a story about AP's coverage of the mission launch and moonwalk.

"Everyone was just so energized and high on the excitement of the event," Boccardi said this week from his home in suburban New York. "It took people a while to come down from the high of when (Neil Armstrong) said, 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' When we heard those words it was just electric; we knew then that the mission had been successful."

"There we were, a few feet from Mission Control talking to the guys up in the capsule, about the time that man landed and walked on the moon," Boccardi recalled. "I was directing the finest news staff you could imagine assembling and we were constructing part of history."

July 20, 1969 astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
walks on the surface of the moon

Forbes: "What Buzz Aldrin And Neil Armstrong Told Me About Parking On The Moon"

“Obviously, when we touched down, we were very relieved. Neil and I acknowledged that with a wink, a nod and a pat on the shoulder. The immediate surface was very powdery, as best we could see looking down from 15 feet. Off in the distance was a very clear horizon, maybe with a boulder. And, of course, the brightness of the sunlit surface was almost like looking out at sunlit snow. Your pupils close down, just as in orbit when the sun is on the spacecraft. The sky is black as can be, but there’s no way you can see stars. They’re there, of course, but you can’t make them out because they’re too faint with all the ambient light in your eyes.

"Upcoming full moon on Friday the 13th is rare; won't happen again until 2049"

 

The full moon in June has a variety of nicknames: Honey Moon, Strawberry Moon and also the Rose Moon. This time around, it can also be called the "Rare Moon."

Nearly Everything We Know About The Moon

 

"Scientists have pinned down the birth date of the moon to within 100 million years of the birth of the solar system — the best timeline yet for the evolution of our planet's natural satellite.

This new discovery about the origin of the moon may help solve a mystery about why the moon and the Earth appear virtually identical in makeup, investigators added." read more 

"US must beat China back to the moon: Entrepreneur"

Bigelow is applying to the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation to amend a 1967 international agreement on the moon so that a system of private property rights can be established there. "When there isn't law and order," he said, "there's chaos."

Bigelow said he believes the right to own what one discovers on the moon is the incentive needed for private enterprise to commit massive amounts of capital and risk lives. "It provides a foundational security to investors," he said.

The big danger here isn't a fear of private enterprise owning and maximizing profitable benefit from the moon," he said. "The big worry is America is asleep and does nothing, while China comes along, lands people on the Moon, and decides, 'We might as well start surveying and laying claim, because who is going to stop us?'"

Does the possibility of China beating America back to the Moon worry him? "A lot. ... Tell me something that they don't have significant interest in," he replied. "Name something."

By CNBC's Jane Wells. (video at the link)