It is hard to believe that we’d ever take a gamble like this again. Maybe a generation that had been through World War II and a Korean war was more willing to take chances.

“It is true that we were cautious in our planning. There were many uncertainties about how well our Lunar module systems and our Pressure suit and backpack would match the engineering predictions in the hostile lunar environment. We were operating in a near perfect vacuum with the temperature well above 200 degrees Fahrenheit with the local gravity only one sixth that of Earth. That combination cannot be duplicated here on Earth, but we tried as best we could to test our equipment for those conditions.”

Neil Armstrong Talks About The First Moon Walk : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR.