On July 20, 1969, a man named Neil Armstrong changed the world forever. Not all by himself, of course, but he was the first man to take a walk anywhere but on Planet Earth, and his dusty footprints make this
NATIONAL SPACE EXPLORATION DAY!
Commissioned by President John F. Kennedy less than 8 years earlier, the Apollo Program collected America’s best and brightest to work on a common goal, leaving the planet’s orbit for the first time, landing men on the moon and returning them safely, and they nailed it perfectly.
Everyone alive that day remembers exactly where they were when they watched Armstrong walk on the Moon on live TV, and describe his “Giant Leap For Mankind.”
No longer were we chained to our home planet, and on that magic day, the stars beckoned. A hundred million dreams of space exploration were launched that day, and Americans loved the Space Race. Our astronauts were national heroes, and Neil Armstrong likened to Christopher Columbus.
As things turned out, the Moon is the limit for now, as the manned space program was drastically cut back in the 1970s in favor of robotic probes.
If the rocketeering, robot-assisted Sci-fi future we once imagined hasn’t happened yet, we can still thank the Space Race for everything else we have, from cell phones, computers, artificial body parts, velcro and Tang, to the telecommunications satellites that enable you to send selfies globally in nanoseconds.
•Suggested Activities: Taking one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.