SAN ANTONIO -- Students at San Antonio’s Challenger Learning Center spent Monday morning using real equipment to learn more about the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The center, which uses mock setups to teach children about the space program, created missions to teach the students about the Apollo Program by using data and plans from the program itself.

“The original Apollo 11 moon landing would never have happened without teams of talented scientists, engineers and astronauts,” said Bill Merrill, manager of the Challenger Learning Center. “They had to be inspired to get interested in science and technology as children when they were in school.”

Merrill said it’s program like this one at the center that helps gets kids excited about possibly joining the space program.

“We have a lot of cool robotic arms, computers, glove boxes, other kinds of science things that duplicate what takes place on the real space program,” Merrill said.

The center’s directors said maybe one of their students will one day be a part of the space program and possibly walk on Mars.

“After the last space shuttle mission, which I think is sometime in 2010, the concentration will be to go back to the moon with a small colony to launch from there further into space,” said Sheila Klein, the center's executive vice president for operations. “And to get children so excited, one, to tell them the foundation on which all of the space program was built, which was the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and to get them excited about being part of the next phase which is going back to the moon and then on to Mars.”