When America Was Proud as a Nation!

       I just finished spending a Sunday afternoon watching the Movie "Apollo 13". What a movie and what a time. The story of the third mission to land men on the moon and the subsequent oxygen tank explosion on the spacecraft and the desperate attempt to get the astronauts home safely (which we did). The Russians had launched Sputnik in October of 1957 and shocked the world, especially the United States. Suddenly, we were way behind the Russians in the "Space Race". Then on November 3, of the same year they launched Sputnik II with the dog "Laika" on board. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created on October 1, 1958, almost a year later, with the simple preamble, "One law for the investigation of the problems of flight within and outside the Earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes", that preferenced the legislation.
       The United States scrambled to catch up with the Russians and the United States and the Soviet Union began a duel for control of the heavens, the so-called "Space Race” that consumed both nations for the next 11 years, ending only when American astronauts first set foot on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The US had several rockets blow up on the ground before we successfully launched our first satellite, Explorer I, on January 31, 1958 and Russia launched a man into space (Yuri Gagarin) well before the US did.
       The US eventually got the ball rolling after President Kennedy challenged America on September 12, 1962 to "put a man on the moon in this decade". We watched as the "Mercury" project got US astronauts (remember the names - Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Deke Slayton, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Wally Schirra, and Alan Shepherd) into earth orbit, and then we moved on to the two man "Gemini" program, and finally the three man Apollo program. We watched as Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman read from the book of "Genesis", as they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, and finally on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. The Russians had given up attempting to put men on the moon.
        What a time that was! American ingenuity, science, and corporate manufacturing made huge leaps in technology. Huge advances in computer technology, flight science, Teflon, rocket design, and even "Tang" (The famous or infamous orange drink depending on your opinion) came out of our space program. That 10-12 year period showed what the United States was capable of when given a challenge.
        Where are we today? We currently have no manned space program, once the Space Shuttle flies it's final mission. In order to send astronauts to the international space station, the moon, or on to Mars, we will have hitch a ride with, guess who? Yep, Russia. Or maybe China, Japan  or India in the near future. Uncle Barack has turned NASA into an Agency researching "Climate Change" and reaching out to Muslim nations (for what?), and has canceled development of the Constellation rocket program. We have no manned space program currently under development. How far we have fallen!