… on July 20, 1969 an American set foot on another world.

Science fiction had long predicted it, but I don’t recall it ever predicting that we would go (multiple times), get bored, and never go back.

In 1972, I had the unforgettable privilege of watching the liftoffs of Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 from a bit over 12 miles away on the beach at Titusville, Florida.

At that distance the curvature of the Earth would cut off a portion, except for the fact that the launch pad is placed on top of a ramp that rises about four stories and the pad itself probably adds another 10 feet or so, making the whole thing visible.

Hold your thumb and forefinger a few millimeters (or 1/8th of an inch) apart, at arms length and imagine a skinny white splinter held vertically between them. That’s what a Saturn V looks like at that distance to the naked eye. A pair of 7×50 binoculars, or a 300 mm telephoto lens, does a decent job of showing it.

When it fires up, it takes a full minute for the sound to reach you, and it’s a low-pitched rumble that is felt as well as heard.

Something I’ll remember ’til the day I die.

-

By the number of people around today that either were to young to remember this or were not born at all.

We were told that domestic needs outweighed the benefits of space. We proceeded to ramp up welfare, Medicare and Social Security in the second stage of the War on Poverty.

We squandered the intellectual energy and national self confidence gained by the Moon Landing and sat around telling each other that providing for those in need was more important….schools needed funding, health care was a pressing need, and lifting people out of poverty by paying them when they were not working.

Forty years later, we have schools that are an even greater disaster, not quite as many in poverty thanks to welfare reform, and a growing population of people needing even more health care (to be provided by other people’s money).

Sigh……even if we had kept the space program growing at 1/4 speed, we would be far better off now; more discoveries of technology, faster incorporation of things like nanotechnology, and the continued ability to ‘think big.’

We lost too much in this bargain.

It was a great example of American exceptionalism. Its also something that Obama will probably apologize for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGNryrsT7OI

They are ages 5, 3 and 2. They absolutely loved it and couldn’t stop talking about it.

And I was only 2 months old when they walked on the moon. My mama and daddy took me from my crib to sit in front of the tv with them while they watched those brave and wonderful astronauts…what a proud day for America and for (then) tiny Huntsville, Alabama. We still have a great deal of love for space exploration and the space program here because it represents some of the greatest characteristics of our nation!