Although I wish I had, I didn't take these photos: When the Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon 40 years ago today, I was "a little" young to be traveling in space with our technology being what it was.
The Apollo 11 mission culminated a decade of what had been the greatest period of technological development in the history of the human race. More useful inventions were made during the 1960's than any other similar time interval before or since. In landing a pair of astronauts on the Moon, the United States of America not only "won" the "space race" but also brought about a great number of benefits that all of us have been able to enjoy since.
Apollo 11 was the first of six missions to successfully land a pair of astronauts to walk on the Moon. However, since Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan returned to the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) at 05:40:56 GMT on 14 December, 1972, no one has been back to the Moon: Lunar exploration and development was abandoned in the interest of developing NASA's Space Shuttle.
It's time to go back to the Moon: We need space to grow: There are far more resources available in the asteroids, moons and planets in our Solar system than there are here on Earth. Once we learn to travel beyond the reach of our own sun, to other stellar systems, we will find even more - and probably more habitable planets. Going back to the Moon is merely one step on that journey, and it's time for us to take it: We must move beyond the low Earth orbit where the International Space Station travels, and establish permanent a human presence on all of the significant bodies in the Solar system, and in bigger, more self-sufficient colonies than the ISS represents, floating in their own independent orbits.
Today is the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest achievements in human history. Let us honor the memory by vowing to re-open the door to space, and by realizing that vow with the actions necessary to bring it to fruition.
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