ANAHEIM, CA—For a man world-famous for his walk on the moon in the summer of 1969,

and for his reluctance to speak before the public, astronaut Neil Armstrong proved to be a
powerful orator, electrifying an audience of doctors.

Mr. Armstrong's public speeches occur about as frequently as scientists discover drugs like
STI571 or cisplatin, but he told doctors that they have to continue to seek those breakthrough
drugs, “to seek the impossible dream.”

Appearing at a sponsored symposium at the 74th annual scientific sessions of the American
Heart Association here in November, Mr. Armstrong molded his half-hour speech around the
confluence of space exploration and medicine—noting that one of the giants upon whose
shoulders he stood, Nicolaus Copernicus, was a physician by trade and an amateur
astronomer by nature.

Uncertainty a Constant Companion’

“You too face setbacks,” Mr. Armstrong told the roomful of rapt doctors, “when you watch a
passing parade of patients for whom there is no hope. For you, too, failure is an unwelcome
but integral part of your effort. Uncertainty is a constant companion.

“But there is also the thrill of victory. Those occasions when something worked for the first
time. Those moments when you notice that something is working repeatedly and consistently.
Those times when you realize you have progressed to a higher level.”

Before he took that amazing trip to the moon more than 30 years ago, the exploration of
space was a chancy vocation. He ticked off the barriers that stood between his landing on the
moon on July 20, 1969, and the state of the space program when President John F. Kennedy
made it a priority to place a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of that
decade.

“The moon was a mystery to us,” Mr. Armstrong recalled. “Our best telescopes were only
able to discern objects the size of the largest buildings on earth. What was the surface really
like? Would it be firm enough to support a landing spacecraft? Most importantly could such a
massive effort be organized and managed? Strategies would have to be devised, launch sites
would have to be built, laboratories had to be constructed.”

Up to the time when President Kennedy made his statement, the longest any American had
been in space was the 15-minute suborbital flight of the late Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

“It was difficult to be confident when rockets were exploding on the launch pad more often
than they were flying,” Mr. Armstrong said.

“Rocket scientists never use the expression, ‘Blast off!,’” he noted. “That's the way it was a
third of a century ago, when we were dreaming the impossible dream.”