Years later when I saw the IMAX film “Hail Columbia” I got tears in my eyes. What a great country … we were… and still could be.

Reporting for duty, SIR!

[The old urban legend is that Mrs. Gorsky would perform oral sex for Mr. Gorsky when the kid next door (Neil Armstrong) "walked on the moon." And, the legend is false. - B]

Steely-eyed missile man, indeed.

“I want to take you back
I want to take you forward
I want to cut a section of land before life itself, so permanently bonded to this dewdrop world, grew for the first moments in its soft sunlight
I want to take you forward to a land no human hands have touched nor foot trod

Grace this red world, or profane it, but go
Stretch what it is to be you, your soul and continence, across eons past and future
Life grew here in these lands and seas once for the first time.
Do it again yourself
Life washed up from these seas and flew these skies
Do it again in a new world
Pick up the pen left silent by older hands and claws
Write a new Genesis and a new Origin of Species
Write this new blank tabula rosa with pixel and optical disc pit,
Write it longhand with a quill and paint it in Kanji with a brush on cloth
Write it with your finger in the dunes of Meridini
Express light and thought and emotion here
Log your accomplishments in precision spreadsheet and abstract monument
Celebrate in report and ritual and symphony
Deploy the solar arrays and let every volt metered be a psalm of praise
And love
Tend and shepherd those in your care, be they metal or mentor
Adore the land and one another and the way each frames the other.
As the land shapes the mind of your lover into with its alien fonts and muses
and your lover forever puts words and notes to this world, the words you will never forget.

If every cell has a soul, and all souls are eternal, you will be able to go someday to the very very first soul of Earth and say, “I too have done this”. “I too have taken the first step, seen the first sunset, drifted to the first shore, taken wing in the first sky, contemplated the moonrise, and moved forward. Ever forward.”

And all souls borne between the billions of years will wonder.
“Ever forward”, repeats the bacillus.
“Ever forward”, repeats the fish.
“Ever forward”, echoes the scorpion, the dragonfly, the amphibian, the reptile, the bird, the mammal. The humans who broke free from the tropics, The explorers lost to history or dominating its pages. The echoes grow in volume across the heavens and eons.

Last to speak, and now first, you touch this wave of every vocalization ever made across the millions of years of terrestrial life, and speak into the silence of this new red land.

“Ever forward”, you say to the silence before you. And the silence, once again, is broken for a beloved world waiting as you have for this moment. And silence ends forever.

Amen, so be it. Ever Forward.

Bless this world, or profane it. You will do plenty of both, once again, because you are human, but go. It is what you do. It is what your flesh and your spirit are for. Your soul is greater still. It is that which is not limited by time, or space, yet is your deepest identity. It brought you here – it reminded you that there are no limits. And now you have returned the favor. It will not let you rest, nor your children, nor theirs. And as you look in their eyes, and theirs look to the next worlds beyond, that chorus echoes silently, or in song, or in pen, brushstroke, monument, or cells or machine – “ever forward”. Ever forward. Ever, ever, forward.”

My father went from plowing fields with horses as a very poor farm kid to production test pilot on six-engine B-47 jets in less than 10 years.
In 1938, Armour Research (a research charity arm of the Armour meat packing family) built a massive vehicle called the Antarctic Snow Cruiser to cross the continent and claim it for the US. I drove from Chicago to Boston for loading, but got stuck in the snow fairly quickly when it reached its destination. It was part of a massive government research project (partially also to prevent Germany from laying claims there for sub bases prior to WWII). It was still used as a base.
In the late 1950′s, Thule Air Base was built in Greenland. It was a project as large and as challenging as the Panama Canal, and it was done in secret. As a spin off research project, they built several small bases under the ice cap. the largest was Camp Century, and from 1960 to 1967, it was a 200 man, nuclear reactor powered base under the ice. The base was shut down and the reactor removed.
It wasn’t just Apollo, or World War Two – the Greatest Generation did a LOT of things that were nearly impossible and did them in such a way that people would barely believe them now.
I look forward to the day America once again has leadership who knows what it is to be an American, but until that day, I won’t forget. I may mourn, I may have to live under a bridge or in the woods, I may loose many battles including whatever is my last one, but I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT I AM AND WHERE I AM FROM. And by the grace of God where I am going.

It’s true, it was a different attitude.

“Get it! Get it! Where is it? There it is! Don’t let it get away! Get it! Pin it! Finish it! Yeah!”.

Focus, Purpose, Striving, Success – killing bloodsuckers or landing on the moon, that’s where it starts!

“Hey Mom! Look what we did!” “Oh, yuck! Get rid of that nasty thing and wash your hands!”

– and that’s where it ends.

The future belongs to those who don’t listen to their moms!

[Voyager 1 and 2 went up, and aren't coming down. - B]

But by then most of America was bored with moon landings.

I wish that I could say America had gotten bored with moon landings because they wanted to move on to the next phase.

But, as you said, look where we’re at now.

Small wonder we’re where we are now.

[Like your dad, I watched them all. Every bit of coverage I could. That was Teh Awesome! - B]

I still think you’re wrong. Why I remember it like it was yesterdaaaay….[fade out]

[fade in to pictures of Commando Cody's spaceship streaking toward the moon]
(Big Announcer voice guy)
NINETEN FIFTY FIVE..A poor colored Bensonhurst bus driver succeeds in putting a woman on the moon. His yet to be born son says “…umm….er…” (announcer chuckle) That boy will be President some day. Goodnight Mr &Mrs America and all the shi…
[fade out]

Why gosh Uncle Charlie, that’s just how I remember it.

[What be these "reruns" and "TVLand" of which thou speakest? - B]

I didn’t know that the Presidents’ dad drove a bus in Bensonhurst. One would have thought the media would have mentioned it.

[I remember. Where do you think I stole the title? - B]

I have never understood why Democrats in general and this”best science President evah” don’t go in more for pissing away our money on the space program. I mean, if their gonna piss away our money anyway, let’s do it on something that will at least make a decent movie. Who want’s to watch “Welfare Queen vs. the Food Stamp Monster”?

I was 4 in 1969 so really my only recollection of the moon landing would come a couple of years later from the conspiracy nuts who (still) claim that the televised “moon” was only someone’s desert backyard here on Earth. *eyeroll*

Buzz had a good method for dealing with the Kool-Aid guzzlers.

I highly recommend it.

However, my first Presidential election in 1984 I voted proudly for the Gipper (even volunteered too), so it all balances out. Twenty years after that (five years ago), I watched every minute of his state funeral. I miss Ronnie. [/OT]