Neil
Armstrong died today – another in the long line of famous people who have
passed away this year. With each
celebrity passing, I have expressed my sadness, but this is different.
Growing
up, I was always drawn to the moon. It
has filled me with a sense of awe and peace – it was God’s porch light. As I got older and learned about the Apollo
program and the first moon landing, I was more fascinated. Like many of my generation, I was at one
point obsessed with the sixties. The two
major events that had my attention were the assassination of JFK and the moon
landing. In sixth grade, we had to
research, write and present about a decade, and I got the sixties (woo!). Part of the assignment was to write two short
stories – mine were about these two events.
As I
got older, I became more interested in NASA than the Kennedys, thanks in no
small part to Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks’ From the Earth to
the Moon.
The
Apollo program, though funded by government and big corporations, ran on two
things: Faith and Hope. And I think the
continued fascination with not only the Apollo program, but space exploration
in general, runs on those two things as well.
Faith in the capabilities of those who make space travel possible, and
hope for a unified universe; hope for a future only ever written of, but not
yet achieved.
Neil’s
passing is truly the end of an era, and came at an exciting time for space
exploration. The excitement over the
Mars rover is akin to those first steps Neil took on the grey powdery surface
of the moon. One can but hope that the
legacy he left will continue on for generations to come – that we will never
lose that sense of awe and adventure; our faith and hope.
Thank
you for taking that one “small” step, Neil.
May you rest peacefully among the stars, and know that I will think of
you every time I gaze up at God’s porch light.
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