Apollo 11
The Apollo 11 moon landing was one of those events, like the John F. Kennedy assassination, when most people who were alive at the time can remember EXACTLY what they were doing.
I was trying to get home.
During the summer of 1969, I was working at a summer job at a Lawson’s store in Ohio, to earn money for my freshman year in college. It was my responsibility to help close the store on the night of the moon landing. Somehow, I managed to get home in time to sit with the other members of my family to watch Neil Armstrong (another Ohio boy, from Wapakoneta) take his fateful steps to the lunar surface.
President Obama welcomed Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and “Buzz” Aldrin to the White House today to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their achievement. Obama said that the lunar landing and walk on the moon by Armstrong and Aldrin continue to inspire young people to study math and science in hopes of becoming astronauts.
I was fated to study science long before the moon landing. The appeal of science for me was that it is rooted in objective reality, rather than opinion, greed, myths, or lies, like so many other human occupations. What I did not know at the time, but learned later, is that American society does not value people who study math and science (sorry, but it doesn’t), and lets them study many of the most difficult subjects in colleges (for many, many years), only to be farmed out to “temp agencies” for employment in contract positions (or to work in full-time positions for bosses with a bachelors in business, or worse 
). In contrast, many people from other countries come to learn science and math in American colleges and return home to well-paid, prestigious positions in their home countries. America needs to “put its money where its mouth is.” (Many of the occupations that are based on opinions, greed, myths, and lies are much better paid, and even more prestigious.)
The achievement of the moon landing was quite extraordinary, and a defining moment for humankind.
As for those who question whether the moon landing actually took place, I would say, “Which is more likely – that the moon landing was faked or that the landing occurred, that we failed to pass on the knowledge from one generation of scientists and engineers to the next, and that now we are going through the ‘reverse engineering‘ of rocket parts from rockets in museums and parts in high-tech junkyards in northern Los Angeles?”
You have to believe the latter, because human stupidity has no limits! (“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein. “Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider!” – George Carlin.)
Why didn’t we do more in space exploration at the time? All wars, like the ongoing “cold” one at the time and the “hot” one in Vietnam, cost a lot of money (and, of course, lives), and often provide very little to show for the money and lives expended.
As Buzz Aldrin said, “Going back to the moon and getting there 50 years after we were there before is not real leadership.”
I try to remain optimistic about the future of space exploration, because the original efforts were so inspiring to all of humankind.
We’ll see if we have learned anything at all since the late 1960’s. I am not placing any bets.
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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