How did we get so far in Space? On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing, leading astrophysicist Dionysis Simopoulos tells us about our journey to the stars and reflects on milestones in his personal journey.

As the whole of humanity watched from television or radio, the first man was ready to descend and walk on the strange surface of the Moon. In Washington, the clocks showed 4 minutes before 11 o'clock on the night of July 20, 1969, and in Athens, it was almost 5:00 in the morning of the next day.

That night, on the dusty surface of the Moon, a human footprint was imprinted for the first time, becoming the symbol of "a giant leap for mankind".

That moment was so significant and meaningful that it can only be compared to the moment of creation. Because, as it was so characteristically written at the time, "that moment was superior to the first use of fire, and the discovery of the wheel, and the exploitation of the plow. It was greater than the journeys of Marco Polo and Columbus, greater even than the splitting of the atom".

Because since then, our world and its history are not limited to just one planet. Because our world is now the entire Space, and our history is as vast and open as the entire Universe.

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In late '68, I was notified by the Greek Consulate in New Orleans that a newspaper in Athens was looking for someone like me to cover the space missions journalistically, and as it was natural, I immediately accepted, with my only compensation being my expenses and the newspaper's airfare, which arrived in two days from its publication. In the first two missions (Apollo 9 and 10) that I covered journalistically, I was limited for economy to visiting the Houston Space Center and sending my reports to Athens from there. I was not willing to miss the new launch of Apollo 11 from Cape Kennedy. I arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on the eve of the launch and tried, for obvious reasons, to find other Greek journalists accredited to witness this historic launch. However, I did not find any officially accredited journalist from our country other than myself!