Brave, resourceful man…82 years on this planet, a few hours on another one—that’s a heckuva biography in itself.
RIP Neil Armstrong…on this date, 2012.
by CJ | Aug 26, 2013 | Journal | 6 comments
6 Comments
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I saw him walk on the moon live, real time on TV. Amazing. There are never enough people like him around to begin with. Now one less. Very sad.
I saw that too. since he was a man of Christian faith, perhaps we will see him in that bright morning when everyone awakes on time and as happy as after the second cup of coffee. My Daddy will be so irritated that there is nobody who needs to be chivvied along!
I watched the moon landing too — as a very little guy in footie pajamas with a blanket. Hey, I was three.
They did, more than 40 years ago, a remarkable thing, something watched by as much of the world as possible.
One big blue marble, an oasis in a desert void, where all of us must learn, somehow, to get along.
Their comments, in looking down at Earth from space, how fragile, beautiful, and connected we are on Earth, still ring home.
And if it’s not too much for comparison, it is the same thing Pyanfar was thinking about, the idea of not keeping all your eggs in one basket.
Many in the US and Russian space programs, and others, lost their lives in pursuit of that dream of the stars, to see what’s out there, to find something better for humanity too. Many more, like Armstrong, spent or are spending their lives in pursuit of that dream.
It is hard for me to believe that we have not made more progress toward that, that we seem to be stalled now, when 40+ years ago, when I was very little, we could set foot on our Moon, and build shuttle orbiters when I was still a pre-teen and young teen.
I want to see us reach Mars and beyond in my lifetime. For all those astronauts, cosmonauts, and all those boys and girls who saw we could really land on the Moon, we could really build shuttles and a space station, and we could really, someday, do the same at Mars.
I remember that day very well. But sending him up there was nothing compared to bringing him back – that, to me, is the real feat.
I’m somewhat saddened that we haven’t made more progress, and some of the Star Trek stuff, like transporters and warp drive, is beyond our reach, at least in the near future. What will really tick me off is if the people who think we shouldn’t spend on exploration and sending people into space have their way.
I don’t suppose there would be a snowball’s chance in Kilauea of the first “man on Mars” being a woman, but I wish …. Heck, I’d settle for a woman on the moon. That’d be OK, too.