Forty years ago, men walked on the moon. The war in Vietnam was raging, the Cold War was at its height, but when Neil Armstrong stepped down from the LEM to the lunar surface, the entire world seemed somehow united for a brief moment. More flights followed Apollo 11′s success. In time, our attention drifted to other things. Space flight became somehow routine. There were always other demands for the money the exploration of space required. The shuttle missions went off with boring regularity, except when there was a disaster, and the continuing shuttle problems eroded NASA’s credibility. The unmanned missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, spectacular as they were, never matched the romance of manned spaceships. The years passed. A Mars mission, which seemed inevitable after the Apollo triumphs, slipped father and farther away. A replacement craft for the aging shuttle fleet is still years away. Sadly, two generations of children have been born who never experienced the awe of  seeing a man take that first small step on the moon.

Topics: Apollo 11, moon