40 years ago today, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy to make a rendesvous with the the moon.
24 years earlier, near Alamgordo New Mexico, the world's first atomic bomb was detonated.
Anyone want to tell the class what these two events had in common? Bueller? Anyone?
They were done because free people decided that something was important and threw unbelievable amounts of manpower, talent, and treasure at the problem to achieve it.
The Apollo program showed that we weren't locked onto this little chunk of dirt for the rest of eternity.
The Manhattan Project provided us with an example of good people having to do bad things to further a good cause.
Both gave us spin-off technologies that we still use today. Miniaturized electronics? A lot of those were perfected for the space program. Clean, safe nuclear power? The first true nuclear reactor was created to make materials for the atom bomb.
It's been a long time since a great national project caught our imaginations. Maybe that's what our country lacks. I hope we can find another one.
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