BJ, I was around for Sputnik, the first satellite to circle the earth, and ever though it was the Russians that got there first it got us stimulated to go farther. I watched the first man(American) in space and until and including the first man on the moon I as did many, watched every maned flight to orbit the earth and into outer space. John Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon by the end of that decade and we all believed it would happen, and it did. We, as Americans and as citizens of this world can do anything when we put our collective heads together.
Look how we geared up for WWII. Our factories were putting out a fighter plane every few minutes, a bomber every hour and a battle ship every week and by the way much of that work was done by the women of this country while the men were at war. We, as a country and we as a member of a global family can do amazing things when we work together.
My wife's grandmother took her bicycle to the Write Brothers bicycle shop in Dayton Ohio in the early 1900s and got to see the first man on the moon in 1969 in her lifetime. Think of the progress that occurred during that relatively short time. The computer that was used to put the first man on the moon would fill a large room and now, 50 years later the cell phone that most folks carry with them everywhere and every day has way more capability than that first room full of electronics. And, incidentally, it was a few humans that made the final calculations with pencil and paper that made that historic event happen.
I loved watching the liftoff yesterday. It stirred memories of the first man in space and everything since then. In the old days it was mostly government money, taxpayers dollars that made it all possible. Now we will rely on American industry and industries from all over the world to achieve the next step and other steps from now on.
Look at the earth from the Hubble telescope, you can't see the earth, you can hardly see our solar system. We, here on earth are less than small. In the grand scheme of things, we are hardly anything at all, just another speck of dust in the VAST UNIVERSE.
I know that we, collectively, can do anything we put our minds to. Nothing is impossible when we work together for it.
