I’m sure most all of you have heard SOMETHING about the fact that today is 40 years since the Apollo 11 mission took off. The mission that took us to the moon for the very first time. And if you’re as nutty about the skies as me then this sparks interest in you. Plenty of sites are doing something special for the event. If you are on twitter you can choose to follow someone like @reliveapollo11, which posts updates as if it were 40 years ago. Or you can really feel like you’re right in the control room by logging into the very cool site WeChooseTheMoon.org, where you can hear the conversations between Houston and Apollo 11 in “real time,” and follow the mission all the way until the landing on July 20th. Basically, you can party like it’s 1969. 
I would have loved to have witness that. My dad used to talk about it. And when he did, he would talk about it with such feeling. His eyes would focus on something far in the distance and he would talk about how fantastic it was, and how amazing it was to watch. My high school English teacher (one of my favorite teachers) told me the story of how she was able to watch it. She was a teenager, and she had run away from home. On the night of the moon landing she was walking through a neighborhood of houses, and she saw a family watching it on their tv. So she stood outside and watched it through the window.
As far as I can remember, there hasn’t been anything big of this nature to happen in my lifetime. I wish there could be. I wish we could land on Mars. I want to witness that – some great accomplishment like that. Something that has the whole world glued to their TV in amazement and wonder watching as we take the next Giant Leap. I remember when I was little my dad used to tell me about the “great things” that I would “probably” see in my lifetime. Like people traveling to moon and living there. He believed even I would be able to travel to space as a tourist. Of course he used to talk about those things 20 years ago, when it was 20 years since the moon landing. Now it’s another 20 years, and things are moving quite slowly. I know that they are now talking about going back to the moon to build. But it seems like those “great things” are still so far off. But matter what, he knew it was just a matter of time before it definitely WOULD happen.
I know there are many people who don’t believe in the space program, and like to spout out about how the money should be used on Earth instead. But so many of the things we have to today that we take for granted come from the space programs. So many things that are a part of our daily lives. It’s part of who we are as humans – to explore and learn and discover. And what would we do without Hubble? Hubble – what I believe to be one of the most FANTASTIC things to come out of the space program. Hubble – our eye to the universe. Showing us wonders we could have never imagined on our own. Wonders that are there to be SEEN. Otherwise their beauty would be for nothing. I mean, how can images like thesee not blow your mind?
I guess I’m most sentimental about space and it’s exploration because of my dad. The way he used to talk about it always captivated me, and is most definitely why it’s always been one of my great interests. I want the stuff that he dreamed about to happen. I want it to happen for him. I want those dreams to come true for him. Even though he can’t witness it himself, I want to see it and say “you were right dad!”
And I believe it will happen. In my lifetime or not, it’ll happen. And he WILL be right.
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