"One Small Step ..."

Apollo 11 landed 36 years ago today. You can see the landing sites of all the Apollo missions here. Be sure to zoom in all the way to see the moon surface up close.

I wish the space program entralled the world now the way it did then. (I wish anything enthralled the world now the way the lunar landings did then.) The accomplishments of NASA in the 1960s (and, truth be told, the USSR as well) are breathtaking in this post-Challenger/Columbia era. Did it make a lot of financial sense to go to the moon? Well, perhaps not. But I would like to believe that humanity did itself proud by the effort, and that many useful products and technologies resulted as well. I marvel nearly every time that I use my cell phone that I probably have nearly as much computing power in that little device as did a typical landing module. The men who climbed aboard those huge rockets were tremendously brave, and were supported by legions of extraordinarily bright people who also had the vision necessary to forge ahead to accomplish their goals.

Personally, I'm still geeky about the space program. I got up early to watch the Columbia shuttle launch for the first time in 1980. I got up very early to try to see that same Columbia fly overhead in February 2003 on the rumor that it might be visible in our area (after not seeing it, I ran inside in the pre-dawn hours to pick up the NASA TV feed on the computer, only to come to the stomach-dropping realization along with the engineers that the shuttle was gone). Making a spontaneous trip to Edwards AFB to see one of the rare California landings of the shuttle was one of the most exciting, memorable things I have ever done.

Recklessness in space exploration for the sake of swagger is not something to be desired, but NASA could stand to be a little less management driven and more goal (i.e., let's go somewhere and accomplish something) motivated. JPL seems to carry that torch now, as they have the luxury of not putting human lives at risk. The Explorer and Odyssey rovers have been a phenomenal success, but how many of us realize that those vehicles are still traipsing around on the surface of Mars, still sending back data, still uncovering answers to questions we didn't know enough to ask?

I hope humanity (and by default, it seems, the US) continues to embrace the seemingly inborn desire to explore space, risky thought it certainly will be.