Neil Armstrong said “It’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,” just after he took those steps that made him the first man on the Moon in 1969. That televised event launched my interest in science and space exploration. It also made me, born in 1962, a fan of CBS News, NASA, and the entire era of “can-do” Government.
This was before the Tea Party and budget cuts, and all of the ramping-up of anti-intellectualism in American and World cultures. The kind of myopia that has caused us to turn so inward we have lost the ability to even think of going back to the Moon.
That has to change.
The cornerstone of American exceptionalism was the very idea that we could go to the Moon, and that we could solve every problem that plagued us, and that both government and industry together had the answers, not one or the other.
God Bless Neil Armstrong.
I don’t want him to rest-in-peace. I want him to bug the hell out of us, and remind us that we can put a Man or Woman on the Moon, again. And this time have them live there.
Bill Carroll