40 years ago tonight
We walked on the Moon. Forty years. I wasn't born until 1974, after we canceled the Apollo program. You know what my earliest memory of space travel is? Watching the Challenger blow up in junior high school.
We should have been launching a Mars mission by then. We should have had a permanent Moon base. Right now, we should be colonizing Mars and mining asteroids, and that wheel-like space station from 2001: A Space Odyssey should be a reality.
But none of that stuff happened, because we lost our nerve and our will to do great things. I hope we get it back someday. Yes, I know we have plenty of problems here on Earth that need fixing, but the future of the human race is out there. Why can't we do both?
Anyway, here's to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, and to the men and women of NASA who made it possible. Big damn heroes, to borrow a phrase.
We need more like them.
We should have been launching a Mars mission by then. We should have had a permanent Moon base. Right now, we should be colonizing Mars and mining asteroids, and that wheel-like space station from 2001: A Space Odyssey should be a reality.
But none of that stuff happened, because we lost our nerve and our will to do great things. I hope we get it back someday. Yes, I know we have plenty of problems here on Earth that need fixing, but the future of the human race is out there. Why can't we do both?
Anyway, here's to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, and to the men and women of NASA who made it possible. Big damn heroes, to borrow a phrase.
We need more like them.