Undoubtedly, the moon landing is one of the most celebrated events in human history. An estimated 600 million television viewers around the world watched the Apollo 11 astronauts walking on the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969. Even for today's standards with easy access to broadcasting, I do not know any other event that could attract such a worldwide attention.

Today marks the 44th anniversary of moon landing and provides an opportunity to look at the renewed interest in space exploration from a different perspective including the efforts to redirect asteroids, mining them and going to mars. This occasion cannot go without a sad note. Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander and first human to walk on the moon, died last August.

Despite the lingering criticism of the space program, we cannot abandon a future in space. The query, "is it worth the cost?" is simply a misguided perception when one looks at the fact that the money spent on space program is less than one percent of US federal spending since 1993.

Not surprisingly, when the moonwalkers returned to earth, many earthlings asked this very same question. Obviously, the lunar rocks and dust the astronauts brought back do not justify the cost. But, you can check this NASA link to see how space program benefited the people on earth.

Such criticisms are not unique or limited to any country or culture. When India's much celebrated moon mission Chandrayan-1 led to the detection of water on the moon, people wondered, understandably, how come many in India walk miles each day in search of water? However, such contradictions are not to be mistaken as excuses to belie the explorations of other worlds.

The cold war ego that drove the space race does not exist anymore, yet it is shocking to learn that since the grounding of the space shuttles last year, NASA was completely dependent on Russian agency to make deliveries to astronauts on the International Space Station. Private companies like SpaceX have stepped in recently for low earth orbit missions. This could have been something anticipated and planned well before. If we could manage to land Eagle on the moon with the technologies of 1960's, there should have been a better solution for the low earth orbit transportations.

There were six successful moon landing missions between 1969 and 1972 with one aborted mission, Apollo 13. The last moon landing that happened in 1972 remained a mundane event and still remains, even after four decades, the last moon landing for now.

Recently, two US congressmen proposed a bill known as the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act that would declare a national park on the surface of the moon to protect the Apollo landings. The rationale is to protect the landing sites at a time when commercial enterprises and foreign nations steadily increasing their ability to land on the moon. Setting aside the legal rights, which I am no expert in, does this site carry any scientific importance? Realistically, not much.

If we really want to celebrate and honor the spirit of Apollo 11, we should use it as inspiration to further space exploration. That's a lot better tribute than living with the decades old hangover from the Apollo landing. NASA's 2014 budget proposal includes a plan to robotically capture a small near-earth asteroid and redirect it safely to a stable orbit in the earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it. Again, all depends on the federal government's approval for funding, which we all know is contentious these days.

The US space agency has no plans for another manned mission to moon in the near future. NASA says it is focusing on efforts to send humans to an asteroid and Mars. In the private sector, a space-venturing project was announced by Planetary Resources, a company whose investors include Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google. The mission-harnessing valuable materials anything from water to platinum by mining the asteroids-sounds like a science fiction idea or even lunatic.

This is exactly where the historic accomplishments like the Apollo 11 mission become relevant. Five or six decades ago, the thought of going to the moon was mere science fiction. Exploration of new worlds driven by curiosity is the mark of an advancing civilization, and they hold the key to heavens.

A proverb of the Buddhist religion often quoted by physicist Richard Feynman encapsulates the whole discussion, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell."