“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
September 12, 1962
Since I was born three months before the Apollo 11 mission, I unfortunately wasn’t one of the 600 million people watching the moon landing on live TV. But the 50th anniversary, and the corresponding media coverage, gave me the opportunity to experience it for the first time, and it moved me more than I expected.
I had long enjoyed reading about the Apollo program, watching documentaries, and seeing the historic photos. But as the anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon approached, I found myself voraciously reading, watching, and listening to almost anything Apollo 11 related.
The historical nature of the moon landings is evident. Arguably, they are the greatest of human achievements. Considerable ingenuity was employed to get men to the moon – the technology was at the time state of the art – but when you consider that there is more computing power in today’s calculators than there was on the lunar command module’s computer, it is the remarkable human achievement that stands out.
It started with President Kennedy’s challenge, “We choose...” Even as I type this, I’m getting goosebumps all over again. America didn't have to put together a massive effort to send men to the moon. But, given the Cold War backdrop, the young president sensed that the time was right to issue the challenge. “The exploration of space will go ahead,” Kennedy said, “whether we join in it or not.” As the rest of the world watched, we chose to do so, in spite of the odds, costs, and dangers. Over the next six years, ten months, and eight days, an army of astronauts, engineers, mathematicians, manufacturers, medical professionals, and others joined in the space race. With Neil Armstrong’s first small step, they won it.
The Apollo generation showed us what we, as a nation, are capable of when we unite behind a common goal.
Fifty years later, while listening to the original radio transmissions between NASA’s Apollo Mission Control Center and the Eagle lunar lander as it approached the moon, I noticed my heart was racing and I was holding my breath – for an event whose outcome I knew! With Armstrong’s immortal words, “Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed,” I exhaled, and the goosebumps came back in force. Fifty years after the fact, the words came spontaneously: “They did it.”
Despite the many challenges they faced, both political and technological, the men and women of the Apollo program marshalled every fiber of their human intellect, talents, and abilities, to reach another world. The drive, the passion, the thousands of hours of training, and the competition against both the Soviets and the clock, were remarkable. They showed us what we, as a nation, are capable of when we unite behind a common goal.
With today’s 24-hour news cycles, vitriolic social media, and loud partisan divisions, it’s tempting to look at the Apollo program and see America during that time as less divided. The past, though, is often seen through rose-colored glasses. America had plenty of division in the 60s, as with every era in our history. The point is, at that period in time, Americans chose greatness, and, in doing so, they had to put aside their differences in order to achieve what seemed to be impossible.
Let the Apollo generation of Americans be our inspiration moving forward. We need more moon shots – and not just in space. We need a moon shot to cure deadly diseases. We need a moon shot for mental illness. We need a moon shot to lift people out of poverty. These difficult challenges, and many others, are our opportunities. And, like going to the moon, we should choose to tackle them, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
What will we, the present generation of Americans, choose to accomplish next? I can’t wait to see.
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