It’s not easy for younger generations to understand just how important the Apollo 11 mission has been to civilization.

Everyone on Earth was entitled to celebrate Monday’s 40th anniversary of our first lunar landing and astronaut Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, July 20, 1969.

How many milestones in history have had such a universal resonance with the world’s population?

Everything from a renewed faith in the value of democracy to a boost in the nascent environmental movement can be credited to that historic occasion.

The 1960s were marked by many movements, perhaps none as oppressive as the simmering Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The space race proved to be an invaluable safety valve that took pressure off the much more ominous contest to see who could build the most atomic bombs.

The fact an astronaut stepped upon the moon, and not a Russian cosmonaut, confirmed – at least for that moment – that a free society was better able to accomplish a feat many called the greatest technological achievement ever.

And then there’s the immeasurable inspiration that swept the planet. How many of our brightest minds went on to great things in part because of what they saw when they looked up that summer night. To see the moon in the sky and know that men stood upon it was proof that anything was possible.

Many involved in the grassroots of the green movement recall how moved they were to see the first photographs of Earth from space. The impression of a fragile blue marble is one of the most awe-inspiring images ever taken.

There were other missions after Apollo 11. A total of 12 people set foot on the moon before the lunar missions were cancelled due to the pressures of that era’s economic crisis.

Similar financial pressures today will likely quash any new attempts to return to the moon.

That’s too bad, as sometimes it takes more than money to fix the woes of the world. Sometimes a blast of inspiration and renewed optimism in humankind goes much further.