I'd own up to your description but I'm afraid I didn't stay up for that particular broadcast, however *was* tickled by this news over the weekend:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.h...

and noticed an excellent Observer review for a Radio 2 programme, "Moonbathing":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lqcrz

which I am planning to catch later.

Was wondering though, "why the 40th" ? That is, why has *this* anniversary caught so much more media interest and sympathetic coverage than any of the others I can recall ?

Probably

a) NASA and anyone associated with the space programmes want to piggy back on the "Yes we can" / youthful-president-like-Kennedy Obama fervour

b) want Obama to stick with Bush's late conversion to space travel and are worried that he'll prefer to fix things at home

c) each year that passes the odds get shorter that one of the Apollo 11 crew won't be there to share it

Haven't listened to Moonbathing yet, but have taped it (like father, like daughter - see earlier "home taping" thread) and will listen to it on my hols.

I'm assuming Armstrong's reserve won't stop him meeting Obama today (if he ducks out, cue lots of downloading of Gil Scott Heron's "Whitey's On The Moon"...)

Got a telescope for my 40th the other week. Absolutely loving it!

I met Buzz Aldrin a couple of years ago, he was sitting at the next table in a Santa Monica restaurant.
As he left I noticed his car licence plate was SPACEBUZZ

and being obsessed with the whole programme. I also held a 12 year old's grudge against Neil Armstrong for getting there before I could, but I'm nearly over that now!

I think the fascination is a lot to do with the astronauts age. Statistically, the Apollo 11 crew are unlikely to be all with us at the 50th anniversary, marvellous though that would be. Only 9 of the 12 men to walk on the moon are still with us.

But it's also about NASA spotting an opportunity. President Obama has ordered a review of their human spaceflight plans and the shuttle is due to be retired pretty soon. In an economic downturn there will be many who argue against further spending so it's good publicity for NASA.

on Discovery Channel. Was originally made in 1970 but people just said 'Urrghh, not The Moon, boooorrring! so it lay under a man's desk for 35 years until being cleaned up and put out on DVD. Top footage which attaempts to reflect the feeling of people at the time towards the Apollo 11 mission before cynicism struck

As they tend to repeat these things ad nauseum on satellite TV I'm sure it will be on 1000 times this month

I take all the points above but feel there seems to be a slight but real and discernable change in the media mood. NASA would want to, and did, use any anniversary to the max but the media, imo, tends to set its own tone much of the time-not just on space, of course.

Perhaps things like "Moondust" helped people like May to sell their programmes to the commissioning editeos; plus maybe it's a generational thing, May is in his late 40s and just the right age to have experienced it as a young child. Also after buying off/bailing out Gordon Gecko for a few hundred billion Apollo may not seem quite such bad value ?

[Note I am not trying to reopen argument over facts, there are certainly two sides to the story and opinion differs-I am just curious about the narrative we are getting this year compared to say 15 years ago].