"With just one hand held up high I can blot you out, out of sight."
I suppose that I ought tell the story of how, on July 21, 1969, when I was five years old (that's forty-three years ago), my mother made me stay awake to see Neil Armstrong step out onto the lunar surface. It wasn't easy. After all, 10:56 p.m. EDT is fairly late for a five-year-old. But she did it. And I saw. And she said, "Watch this. It's something you're always going to want to remember." And she was right. It was humanity ascending. The politics that pushed it to happen then and there be damned. After ~3.5 billion years of evolution, a lifeform from Earth, a product of all those evolutionary footsteps, stepped onto another world than the one on which it had been born. No one else will ever be the first. No one else will ever take the place of Neil Armstrong in that respect. And this is what ought be remembered. You do not mourn the death of the first man to walk on another world. You celebrate his life.
I am not hopeful for the future our species, and I doubt we'll ever travel beyond our solar system (excepting via probes and robots, which is still pretty damn amazingly bow tie). I do not believe our future is a bright one. But, still, on a day in July in 1969....
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Yesterday, we stayed in and rested. Which, I think, led to me having a bit of insomnia last night. I didn't get to sleep until after six ayem. I finally drifted off, watching the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). But today, we go Outside, into the world. We have a mission. I'll report on it tomorrow.
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I don't usually care for fan-made videos, but this one, for Kate Bush's "Hello Earth," seems awfully appropriate at this moment. This is what we have, and what we stand to lose. To the memory of Neil Armstrong, and to honour life on Earth:
For my part, if anyone ever offered me even a one-way trip beyond the sky, I'd go. I'd go in a heartbeat, and I'd look back, and I'd look ahead of me.
Earthbound,
Aunt Beast
I am not hopeful for the future our species, and I doubt we'll ever travel beyond our solar system (excepting via probes and robots, which is still pretty damn amazingly bow tie). I do not believe our future is a bright one. But, still, on a day in July in 1969....
---
Yesterday, we stayed in and rested. Which, I think, led to me having a bit of insomnia last night. I didn't get to sleep until after six ayem. I finally drifted off, watching the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). But today, we go Outside, into the world. We have a mission. I'll report on it tomorrow.
---
I don't usually care for fan-made videos, but this one, for Kate Bush's "Hello Earth," seems awfully appropriate at this moment. This is what we have, and what we stand to lose. To the memory of Neil Armstrong, and to honour life on Earth:
Click to viewFor my part, if anyone ever offered me even a one-way trip beyond the sky, I'd go. I'd go in a heartbeat, and I'd look back, and I'd look ahead of me.
Earthbound,
Aunt Beast