In this July 21, 1969, photo made available by NASA, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, approaches the Command and Service Modules for docking in lunar orbit. Early on in the mission, Armstrong made a comparison between the lunar surface and the "High Desert of the United States," where he worked as an Edwards Air Force Base pilot from 1955 to 1962. [Michael Collins/NASA via AP] ▲ In this July 20, 1969 image made from television, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface of the Moon. A little more than 10 minutes after his famed "giant leap" speech, Armstrong said the lunar surface reminded him of " the High Desert of the United States," a reference that spoke to his time living and working in the Mojave Desert in the years before he became an astronaut. [NASA via AP] ▲ ▲

A little more than 10 minutes after Neil Armstrong took that "small step," his thoughts turned briefly to the Mojave Desert.

Note: Thanks are due to my colleague, Martin Estacio, who suggested this story would make for a good "This Desert Life" entry.

Neil Armstrong stepped carefully into the sunlight and dug a metal tool into the lunar surface.

Early on in his more than 21 hours on the Moon, the astronaut was tasked with collecting a "contingency sample" of soil and rocks. To do this, he assembled what Dr. James R. Hansen described as "a pooper-scooper-like device" in his 2005 biography, "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong."

Initially, though, Armstrong experienced some difficulty that piqued his curiosity.

"This is very interesting," he said. "It's a very soft surface, but, here and there, where I plug with the contingency sample collector, I run into a very hard surface, but it appears to be very cohesive material of the same sort. I'll try to get a rock in here. Just a couple."

Back inside the lunar module Eagle, pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin eagerly awaited his own Moon walk. He watched through a window as Armstrong continued to dig.

"That looks beautiful from here, Neil," he said.

Armstrong's response — uttered 10 minutes, 24 seconds after his "giant leap" sermon — floored me the first time I heard it.

"It has a stark beauty all its own," he said. "It's like much of the High Desert of the United States. It's different, but it's very pretty out here."

The words dissolved in an instant. They went unacknowledged by Aldrin, who, coincidentally, returned to Earth to command the Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base from 1971 to '72.

But Armstrong's comparison of the Moon to the Mojave Desert, fleeting as it was, said much about the life he lived before he became the world's most famous astronaut 50 years ago Saturday.

Neil Alden Armstrong arrived at Edwards in 1955, eight years after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier above the air force base — then called Muroc Army Air Field — located some 30 miles northeast of Lancaster.

Armstrong served as a test pilot there. Between 1955 and '62, he amassed more than 2,400 flight hours in 48 different types of aircraft, including seven flights in the rocket-powered, hypersonic X-15, according to a 2015 Antelope Valley Times report.

Initially, on weekends, Armstrong commuted 180 miles from Edwards to an apartment in Westwood. His first wife, Janet, lived there while she took classes at UCLA.

In "First Man," biographer Hansen wrote that the couple rented a house surrounded by alfalfa in Lancaster just one semester later. The 1957 move to 5026 East Avenue L meant Janet never earned a degree. It was a sacrifice she reportedly regretted.

They then purchased a ramshackle, 600-square-foot cabin in Juniper Hills, about 6 ½ miles south of Pearblossom and Highway 138 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Despite no electricity, bathtub or hot water, the Armstrongs made a life together.

They remodeled the cabin to a livable condition, and Janet gave birth to their first child, Eric Alan, in Lancaster on June 30, 1957. A daughter, Karen Anne, was also born in Lancaster on April 13, 1959. Mark Stephen, their last child, arrived April 8, 1963, after the family moved to Houston.

Neil and Janet Armstrong both said they loved their remote setting, according to Hansen, because it provided "total relaxation away from everything."

That, coupled with his work at Edwards, must've made a lasting impression on Armstrong. After all, his reference to the Mojave on the Moon came some seven years after the family left the desert.

Still, I was astonished that he mentioned it at all. The High Desert, despite a rich history and so many favorable qualities, tends to go unnoticed by society at large. Unaquainted folks typically ignore its existence altogether until some earthquake, widfire or heinous murder comes along to spark superficial interest.

So, in search of further insight, I emailed Hansen, a history professor at Auburn University since 1986. He graciously replied to my inquiry within hours.

"From his cabin home in Juniper Hills, Neil had a view down to and across the Mojave stretching for as far as the eye could see, well over a hundred miles," Hanson told me. "The view from that altitude must have been quite similar to the view in the last minute or so of his descent to the Moon in the lunar module Eagle."

Armstrong saw something comparable in the spatial and aesthetic qualities of "the two panoramas," Hansen continued. As such, "the lunarscape actually looked relatively familiar, not foreign."

The first man to walk on the Moon "looked out from his cabin to the desert pretty much every day" and "landed aircraft onto the dry lakes at Edwards well over 100 times," Hansen said.

"The familiarity might have comforted him," he offered.

Now there's a wondrous thought: Neil Armstrong, surrounded by the vastness of space nearly 240,000 miles from Earth with no real guarantee that he'd return, found comfort in thoughts of the Mojave Desert.

Perhaps, in that brief moment of fond recollection, the Moon even felt a little like home.

Weeklies Editor Matthew Cabe can be reached at MCabe@VVDailyPress.com or at 760-951-6254. Follow him on Twitter @DP_MatthewCabe.