This Is What's Next

"A sad reminder of a time when two powerful nations challenged each other and then boldly raced into outer space. What will be the next thing that challenges us? Makes us go farther and work harder? Surely, we can do it again. As we did at a time when our eyes looked towards the heavens, and with outstretched hands, we touched the face of god."

"Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is on a timeline of explorations and this is what's next."

I am so infatuated with that period in American history. And, yes, we did look into the heavens and we saw more than anyone else had ever seen before. Not to be blinded by the divine, we strove forth into the unknown and discovered riches beyond imagine. Alan Shepherd's virgin view of our dear Earth from outer space; how sad it is that we cannot share that undoubtedly magnificent sight. Of course, we can see it in pictures and videos, but we cannot truly share it for it is a gift held by only a handful of people. Even if I were to dream of what it might look like, the image becomes too ethereal, too far-fetched. Regardless, I am taken, seduced by the individuals, by the ideals, by the sheer determination that put a human being beyond the reaches of the endless horizon.

In a time of social upheaval, a charismatic man came forth and claimed that within the decade this country would have a man on the moon. In the face of incredible social changes, one man asked the people to make an incredible leap of faith; and they did. I imagine many were captivated as I was, but for different reasons. It may have been the fear of a Red moon, or the fact that we might be one step closer to that which we cannot see. The visionaries dreamt the dreams, the engineers built the machines, and the American spirit sent them into space.

We cannot know either what it felt like to be named one of the first astronauts or truly what the word astronaut meant to those select few. However, for the span of one decade, an astronaut was a symbol of America; an ambassador to the cosmos hailing from a land unlike any other the world had ever known. It is interesting to note that man, a terrestrial creature, had one of his most remarkable moments free of the forces that had always kept his feet securely planted. And yet another moment that neither you or I can ever experience.

There is an intrinsic beauty in what was achieved; a subtle grace when one mentions the words Mercury or Apollo; a flush of pride when one recalls the phrase "the Eagle has landed." There was something heroic in the names Neil Armstrong, Charles Conrad Jr. and James Lovell. Before these men's eyes, and at their feet, lay The Ocean of Storms and The Sea of Tranquility, titles that challenge the imagination to look beyond the barren landscape that they seem to describe.

For me, it may be almost impossible to fully comprehend what took place during this time period being born a full seventeen years and twenty-six days after man first set foot on the moon, but it will always remain a romantic notion in my head. The feats of such an era, boxed in on all sides by radical social change, remain unparalleled and far surpass anything we could have claimed to achieve since.