Like many of you, I remember watching 40 years ago today as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon. For kids my age, this was the big deal: I read all sorts of books on the space program, built a model of the Apollo spacecraft, and gathered around a black-and-white TV with my family to watch the astronauts step out of their craft.  Many of us will always remember where we were when that "one small step" took place.

Looking back today, I wonder if we appreciate all the benefits that we got from the space program. It is fashionable to think that all the innovations come from start-ups and little projects, but sometimes it's the big projects that spur all sorts of unpredictable and sometimes wonderful results.

The space program was in some respects the biggest tech project of them all. It was clearly a military project at heart, but the implications of the space program have gone well beyond that. A number of the early contracts in semiconductors were driven by the space program, and that helped push computer technology forward. You can argue whether that would have happened with or without the space program, but there's no doubt that much of the crucial early funding for computers came from military programs.

And clearly the space program brought us a lot of things you can't argue with: satellite communications, GPS devices, most of the mapping programs, and all sorts of advanced materials.

It's always hard to tell what benefits will come from technology.  The folks in charge of NASA didn't plan for us to be carrying cell phones with integrated GPS devices, I'm sure. Similarly, when another military spinoff laid the foundations for the Internet, I doubt that Facebook or Twitter crossed their minds.

But there's no doubt that getting a lot of bright people together to focus on a single clear mission--putting a man on the moon and getting him home safely--with a clear deadline (by the end of the decade) worked.  In retrospect, you can argue about the mission, or whether it was cost-effective.  You can't argue with the results.

Of course, there are lots of other lessons to learn as well.  Since the Apollo program was completed, NASA's mission hasn't seemed so clear.  The space shuttle program is on its last legs, and it's unclear what will replace that.  Every decade or so, some president will call for a return to the moon or a mission to Mars, but thus far, this has not seemed to be a priority, and it hasn't gotten funding.  Arguably, we've gotten much more scientific data from unmanned spacecraft than from manned exploration. Still, humanity has always explored, and I have hope that within my lifetime, we'll see more manned spaceflight.

And there are a lot of things that weren't done right. Much of the specific technology wasn't documented as well as it should have been.  Indeed, even the original tapes of the moon landing seem to have been erased, giving new ammunition to the people who think the whole thing was a fake. (I'm not buying into the conspiracy theory--I've met a number of people involved in the Apollo program that I trust --but someone wasn't thinking too clearly about the importance of that material.)

Still, I can argue that the most important thing the space program brought us wasn't missiles or satellite communications or indeed anything that directly related to it. The most important thing was that it focused a lot of educational resources on science and technology, and inspired countless scientists and engineers to take up their professions. They, in turn, gave us the technology we use today, and are the people we're counting on to help solve many of the world's most pressing problems.

It's also important to note that while big government programs brought us basic technology, the consumer-facing uses of technology came only as lots of different companies began to try to commercialize it.  The whole space program was just "one small step" toward the world we now live in.  And a very an important one.