I am old enough to remember when history was made. It was late in the evening, and my brother and I had already gone to bed.

There had been nothing special that had happened earlier in the day, so when mom and dad came and got us out of bed to watch TV, I knew something was up.

And to be exact, it was July 20, 1969 when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to ever set foot on the moon.

After plopping down on the couch with mom and dad, they explained to my brother and me what was happening.

My memories are a little fuzzy with exactly what they said, but I do recall seeing Armstrong in his spacesuit, and it looked like he was jumping on the moon.

I was yet to understand the gravitational difference between Earth and the moon.

At nine years of age, I was also not quite cognitive of how momentous this moment was, but thankfully, my parents did.

Tomorrow will mark 50 years since that night when I was awakened to see history in the making.

A lot has changed since then.

Space exploration has grown to include more astronauts landing on the moon, women becoming astronauts and traveling into space and now we even have a space station, where crew members live for months at a time conducting experiments and doing research.

There is even fodder that, in the very near future, the ordinary person, who has plenty of money, may even have the opportunity to take a ride into outer space.

I, for one, will not be signing up for that trip, even if the money tree did bloom in the back yard!

I often talk of how the world has changed, but when you consider the relevance, the world is always changing.

Certainly, there were many naysayers back in the day when landing on the moon seemed like an out of-this-world and absurd idea, and it probably was to those dodging change.

However, today it’s not so unrealistic.

Since landing on the moon, we have also done fly-bys, orbited and landed on mars with landers and rovers; and to the NASA website, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet is scheduled for 2020.

These futuristic goals are far beyond my academic capabilities, but I am glad I live in a world where there are those who do have the gifts to dream beyond the stars.

When Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module and placed his feet on the moon, his first words were “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

As history continues to be made, these words still ring true, collectively; we can change the world, one step at a time.

Terri Cowart Frazier is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. She can be reached at terri.frazier@vicksburgpost.com .