Remembrance and reflection: July 20, 1969

One of my most enduring memories from forty years ago today is the Bible verse the Kansas City Star published below the fold on its front page that morning, as it traditionally did on Sunday. That day they chose Isaiah, Chapter 65, Verse 24: "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."

The rest of the day is a blur. I recall the anxiety of the powered descent-which became my favorite part of the moon missions-given that nothing like it had ever even been tried with a manned vehicle up to that point. A rocket flying backwards to descend softly onto the surface of an alien world? That only happened in the movies. Well, to be fair, it had been done with unmanned spacecraft, but even then we had only gone 5 for 7 with our Surveyor program. If the Russians had even tried it again after their one announced success, they weren't saying. And the Lunar Module, unlike any of its robot predecessors, would then have to perform the feat in reverse as an encore.

The exhilaration of hearing Armstrong's proclamation that "the Eagle has landed" was indescribable. I immediately resolved to call in sick to my evening job so as not to miss the start of the main event (the moonwalk had originally been scheduled for the early hours of the next morning, and I suspect I wasn't alone in not being surprised it was moved up). Like everyone else, I puzzled over the grammatical ambiguity of Armstrong's first-step words-and I'm sorry, Neil, but I've got to say it: You flubbed the line, pal. I really feel for you. That pause after you realized it must have seemed like an eternity.

(Just for the record, I watched the day's proceedings on NBC. I was never really a big fan of Walter Cronkite, but his reaction to the touchdown, which I've often watched since, was a great moment. Cronkite set an example many of today's so-called broadcast journalists would do well to follow. My condolences to his family and friends.)

All right, I'll admit it. I was a space buff and a hopeless astronaut wannabe as a kid. But you know, I don't regret that. Even though I wasn't successful in obtaining the engineering degree I was inspired to pursue, I'm only sorry I wasn't successful, not that I went after it. We must test ourselves through striving to achieve in order to discover our limits. That is the most important lesson I have taken away from the example of the space program.

Sometimes, however, I do wish I had been a bit more prescient. I wonder whether I'd still have followed the path I did had I known that the year of the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing would also be the year of the 37th anniversary of the last one. It's too bad there weren't big headlines trumpeting another 1969 event that in some ways became more important to us today than those footprints in the lunar dust-the establishment of ARPANET. Oh, why couldn't I have gazed into a crystal ball and seen not moon bases and suborbital spaceliners flying from New York to Beijing in 45 minutes, but ubiquitous computers and a maze of global networks linking them, with the prospect of largely obviating the need to physically travel to Beijing at all?

If I had, I might even be able to afford my own moon base by now.