To the Moon and Beyond
This Saturday will be the 50th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon. I was five years old then and don’t remember watching it live. The Apollo 11 landing occurred on a Sunday night with Neil Armstrong stepping on the lunar surface just before 10:00 p.m. CST. Since it would have been past my bedtime, I was probably asleep then. I do remember dressing up as an astronaut for Halloween three months later and wearing my costume at kindergarten. As a kid, I looked forward to the 21st century figuring we’d be living like The Jetsons. I assumed our space program would travel throughout our solar system and beyond. Although probes have orbited and landed on other extraterrestrial bodies, manned missions using the Space Shuttle haven’t gone beyond our earth’s orbit. When Newt Gingrich briefly ran for president in 2012 , he suggested putting an American base on the moon by 2020. While it’s unlikely that will happen next year, President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon ...