Douglas Noverr, senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters, was 27 at the time of the moon landing. He said most Americans followed the Space Race.

“I don’t think anyone had a particular idea what the military significance was at the time. This (was) more like a horse race between two thoroughbreds,” he said. “It was still very much as if we needed to emphasize a point or prove a point.”

Noverr said the landing was on a Sunday, and most people gathered with their families to watch it.

“Everybody watched it. It was one of the most compelling television events, probably, in my lifetime,” he said. “At the same time you felt all this elation and national pride, there was also all this uneasiness and fear for the astronauts. If anybody had questions about what NASA was capable of, it was answered on that weekend.”

John French, a production coordinator at MSU’s Abrams Planetarium, said after the mission, scientists found the moon and the Earth were made of the same mix of minerals when they analyzed moon rocks.

“When Earth was forming, there was probably some collision with some other stuff that split it into two pieces, the Earth and the moon,” he said.

Michael Velbel, a geological sciences professor who teaches a course on planetary geology, said before the moon landing, scientists were debating whether its craters came from asteroid impacts or volcanoes. Analyzing the rocks proved the asteroid hypothesis.

“Another important thing was … we could determine how long ago some things had happened (using radioactive dating),” Velbel said.

Visiting assistant history professor Jason Friedman said the moon landing was planned for political, rather than scientific purposes. The Soviets had sent up the first satellite, Sputnik I, in 1957, triggering the Space Race.

“When President (John F.) Kennedy called out (in 1961) that we’re going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, he was trying not only to lift the spirits of the Americans, he was also trying to one-up the Soviets,” he said.

History professor Michael Stamm said the specter of nuclear war and revelations about the environmental impact of pesticides had soured many Americans on the technology and the government in the 1960s.

“It was kind of inspiring to people as they saw something that the government did that was a good thing,” he said.

French said the landing inspired him to study astronomy.

“I was just a little kid, sitting on my grandmother’s living room floor. She had a little black-and-white TV and the whole family was huddled around,” he said.

“It kind of got me into the field I’m in now, knowing something like that could happen.”

Noverr said the landing had special significance for him, because he had supported Kennedy.

“That was very much recalled, all that enthusiasm and energy the country had back in 1961,” he said. “What struck me of course was … this barren moon surface and the blackness of space. Seeing that was an incredible experience.”