Artemis and my thoughts…
The other night I was preparing my dinner, and also watching the splash down and recovery operations of Artemis II on ABC News. The excitement of the spectators, reporters, and NASA personnel even through the television was almost intoxicating. It reminded me of when as a small child I watched man walk on the moon for the first time in 1969. After that we had several more lunar landings, and the almost tragic Apollo 13 when it nearly all went wrong. Every time a mission returned there was terrific excitement, and high anticipation of the next lunar exploration. Sadly, manned lunar exploration ended in December 11, 1972, when NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmit became the last humans to walk on the moon. NASA then moved on to the Space Shuttle program, and the same excitement embraced society as shuttle flight after shuttle flight completed their missions.
Yes, there was sadness, and real tragedy when we lost the shuttles Challenger, and Columbia. We also should not forget the crew of Apollo One who in 1967 perished when their capsule burst into flames on the pad. Then there are several Cosmonauts of the Soviet space program who lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration. Yet despite those terrible losses, the space programs, and the global community supporting the space agencies would not let space exploration die.
Many years ago, a former girlfriend and her dad were highly critical of the Space Program. They frequently questioned “what did we learn”? Why was it necessary to risk lives, and spend all those billions of dollars just to visit the moon? It is hopefully a given that we learned a phenomenal amount of scientific knowledge about our lunar neighbor, and a thousand other technical fields far too numerous to mention here. But more importantly than science, it gave many of us something much closer to our hearts. It gave us hope when we looked to the sky, and also a distraction from the troubles of the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s.
Flip forward almost 60 plus years to 2026, Sadly our world is again in turmoil, with terrible wars, and once stable governments enduring political strife. So again, we are looking to the sky in the hopes of creating the peace we can not seem to find on earth. In two or three years it is hoped that man will once again walk on the moon, and perhaps even live "up there" on an actual moon base.
Flip forward almost 60 plus years to 2026, Sadly our world is again in turmoil, with terrible wars, and once stable governments enduring political strife. So again, we are looking to the sky in the hopes of creating the peace we can not seem to find on earth. In two or three years it is hoped that man will once again walk on the moon, and perhaps even live "up there" on an actual moon base.
A simple constant is that all who read this blog post are mortal beings with finite lives. Most with good hearts will hopefully live long happy healthy lives filled with love, and warmth. While my own long life is questionable due to heart issues. I do hope I will live long enough to witness the wonder of mankind walking on the moon one more time, and again exploring outer space.
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