We Chose to Go to the Moon

Forty years ago today, the first human beings set foot on an extraterrestrial body. I, of course, don't remember it. We came, we saw, and we left 6 years before I was born. Think about that for a moment. People are constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States who have never lived in a time when humans have stood on another world.

We've had low-Earth orbit most of my life. NASA was testing Enterprise before I was born, and by the time I was 3, they had regular shuttle launches going. It wasn't watching humans walk on the moon, but I was excited nonetheless. When my grandparents got a VCR, they recorded all the shuttle launches for me to watch. There was something about watching the plume of fire and smoke push people into space that captivated my imagination. People went into space. Challenger put a stop to the televised launches.

People argue that the space program diverts funds that could be used here on Earth. I don't know the exact numbers, but I don't think there was less poverty, hunger and overall human misery to be ameliorated in 1962 than there is now. By 1969, there were wars on both nations (North Vietnam) and common nouns (poverty), domestic unrest and any number of other things that needed American attention and funds like they do now. Still, we chose to go to the Moon.

In an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Seven of Nine makes a toast to an unborn baby, "May all her dreams come true except for one, so she might always have something to strive for." In 1962, putting a man on the moon must have seemed like a pipe dream. Forty years after the fact, our ambitious national goal might have been our undoing. Michael Griffin has an excellent op-ed explaining how that can be. We put a man on the moon and brought him safely home. Having met the ambitious goal, we had nothing left to strive for. Forty years hence, we've lost the will to reach for the stars.