The three astronauts who took part in the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon were honoured in Washington yesterday for advancing aviation and the science of aerodynamics.
The Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, presented the Langley Gold Medal to Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, on the 30th anniversary of the moon landing.
The medals were awarded at the National Air and Space Museum with the Columbia, the command module which carried the astronauts to the moon, as a backdrop. "You embarked on a mission of a half a million miles, a mission to a place that was always within our view, but never before within our reach," Mr Gore told them.
On July 20th, 1969, while Collins orbited the moon in the Columbia command module, Arm strong and Aldrin descended in the lunar module to the moon's surface. Soon afterwards Armstrong uttered the now-famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Former recipients of the Langley medal - administered by the Smithsonian Institute - include Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1909 and Charles Lindbergh in 1927.
Meanwhile, British scientists said yesterday they were "quite pleased" that the flight of the US space shuttle Columbia had been delayed - rather than put years of their work in jeopardy.
Columbia's countdown was aborted just six seconds before blast-off yesterday, after high levels of hydrogen were detected in an engine space. The launch was to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the first moon walk.
However, for Prof Ken Pounds and his team at Leicester University, yesterday's drama simply meant they would have to wait a little longer to see the fruits of their labour in orbit around Earth.
He and scientists at the university have developed part of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was to be launched into orbit from Columbia's cargo hold.