38 Years Ago

Good heavens. It's July 20th. I'm just not paying attention. I have to say I'm amazed it was a Yahoo headline. Usually the only person that notices is me, until I bug everybody about it.

What an amazing combination of time and place, of can-do and will-do. It was some parts fear, some parts excitement. Really, we went to the moon pretty much as soon as we were able to do it. For some reason it was the United States of America that managed it. With the whole world watching every step of the way. Can you imagine the Apollo missions (or the Gemini, or Mercury) going off in secret? Every rocket that blew up, every step that went wrong we were embarassed about, but we didn't cover up. I'd like to think that's part of why we succeeded.

By the way, I have heard from sources that there are recordings of Armstrong where you can hear him say the "a" in "That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind." Maybe someday we'll find those tapes.

And maybe someday we'll go back to stay. It's 2007. According to Clarke, right now we should have a moon base and the failed Discovery mission should be orbiting Jupiter. To say nothing of flying cars. (On the other hand we have iPods.) Ah well.

Someday.