The year was 1969.  All eyes were glued to television sets as a wondrous event unfolded live before our eyes.  Three explorers braved the unknown.  On July 20, 1969, half a billion people watched as Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon.

We called it the “Space Race”.  It began with Sputnik in 1957.  The Russians were ahead of the U.S.  First man in space, first man to orbit the earth.
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint
session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American
safely to the Moon before the end of the decade.  After consulting with Vice President Johnson, NASA Administrator James Webb, and other officials, he concluded that landing an American on the Moon would be a very challenging technological feat, but an area of space exploration in which the U.S. actually had a potential lead.  A excerpt from Kennedy’s speech:
“I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

     First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

What a goal!  Could we do it?

In September of 1962, Kennedy gave another famous speech about the USA plans to go to the moon:

“We choose to go to the moon. 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, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

The effort to reach the moon was hard, and lives were lost in the effort.  But work proceeded, and the goal was reached, and then surpassed.  What was accomplished in the 1960’s, with the technology available at that time, is mind boggling.

Today, it seems our feet and eyes are fixed on the ground, instead of the stars.  Let’s take a few moments to think back on those times and those accomplishments in another time and place.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he said, before imprinting his boot in the lunar dust. The televised images were relayed to Earth from a camera mounted on a leg of the Apollo 11 lunar module. Armstrong was joined on the moon by fellow crewmember Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. Above them a third astronaut, Michael Collins, orbited in the mission’s command module.

Armstrong and Aldrin spent only a few hours on the moon setting up some simple experiments. They left their footprints, a United States flag, and a plaque that reads: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the Moon—July 1969 A.D.—We came in peace for all mankind.”