I was looking to confirm my side comment about R' Yaakov Kamenetsky to msh210 in the comments on the question and found on Hirhurim the following quotation from Emes Le-Ya'akov, which addresses part of your question directly (Emes Le-Ya'akov al Ha-Torah, Gen. 1:1, 5761 revised edition pp. 15-16):
As an aside, we learn from these words of the Ramban [on Gen. 1:1], and in particular from what he concluded in the continuation of his words on verse 8, that everything that exists in the creation in the entire world, including the sun, the moon and all the heavenly hosts, are not called "heavens." The "heavens" are only things that have no physical bodies, such as angels, hayos and the merkavah. However, anything that has a physical body is included in the name "earth" in verse 1...
These words of the Ramban are what carried me when we saw men descending from a space ship on a ladder onto the surface of the moon. I thought to myself: "What would the Rambam, who wrote that the moon has a spiritual form, answer now?" I thought that at that point Kabbalah defeated Philosophy, and comforted myself with the words of the Ramban...
We are forced to say that what the Rambam told us in these chapters [Hilkhos Yesodei Ha-Torah, chs. 1-4] is neither ma'aseh merkavah nor ma'aseh bereishis. Rather, he wrote those four chapters from his deep mind and from his knowledge of secular wisdom, i.e. not from the wisdom of Torah but only from Philosophy... and the Rambam only wrote these as an introduction to the Mishneh Torah while the main part of the book begins with chapter 5...