I don’t have a good moon-landing story. Forty years ago, I was 15. I watched the grainy, black-and-white video of the landing on a snowy, black-and-white TV. I always associate the moon landing — for some reason — with the Miracle Mets of 1969 and with my fervent participation that summer in a theater workshop for teens.
The space program and I grew up together. TV sets would be wheeled into my grade-school classrooms to watch the Mercury launches. I was as enthralled as any other kid back then. Then I went through as long period, as I suppose many baby boomers did, in which I was blase and apathetic about the space program.
As an adult, though, I consider myself a space geek and devour anything I can find about it, especially those Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo years.
One of my favorites was the wonderful Tom Hanks-produced HBO series, “From the Earth to the Moon.” I especially love the theme song, which I give you here to celebrate this great day in human history: 01 From The Earth To The Moon Main Theme.m4a
What’s your moon-landing story?
I consider it a good moon landing story and I was with you! I remember going outside, looking at the sky, and realizing it would never be the same again.
On the day of the moon landing in July of 1969, I was walking on college campus with my first love. The moon walk offered hope during a very turbulent time both in my personal life and in the world. In those days I thought the world was going to collapse because of racism and the war in Vietnam. I truly believed that world would explode within five years. I have since learned that the world goes on and that I will eventually die.
Remember, just 15 months earlier, Martin Luther King, Jr was killed in Memphis and riots rocked the nation. Bobby Kennedy had been killed in June of 1968. And we were 7 months into the first term of a new president, tricky Dick Nixon, who was to eventually go down in history as a sinister crook.
One of the few pleasure I had in those days was reading science fiction. It gave me hope that some day we might find a better world and even life on another planet. The moon walk gave us hope. I was also in love for the first time and this gave me hope. As I strolled across campus, hand in hand with the young woman I loved, I dreamed of traveling in space and meeting aliens. I dared to dream of one world, one people, one planet, one universe.
We as a nation failed to go beyond the dream, to realize space travel, to visit new worlds, to go where no person has ever gone. Maybe some day in another time and place when my generation has passed on. We have failed to live up to the promise in the hearts of so many who found hope in the moon walk.
But what more could a twenty year old boy ask for: the love of a young woman and space travel. I celebrate still today the one large step for mankind in my heart and soul and the one small step I made on a small campus in northern Indiana on July 20, 1968..
What a wonderful, poignant memory, Harley. I, too, was shattered by the events of 1968, but being a few years younger than you, I was not affected in quite the same way you were.
I agree we have not fulfilled the promise of space travel, although I believe the Hubble telescope was a major achievement for science.
I have long believed that setting some national goal the way JFK did when he said we’d go to the moon within the decade of the 60s would unite our nation and capture our imaginations. (but not Bush’s stupid goal of merely going BACK to the moon).
Loved your memory of this day. Thanks so much for sharing.