Having been busy the last few days I have not had time to note the 45th Anniversaries of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and the first men walking on the moon – Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on July 21.  I was twelve years old when it happened, and I remember the interest in the event was intense and universal.  It was broadcast live on all three major networks, TV and radio were the only sources for live information at that time – no internet or cable TV yet.  Looking back now, especially at the moon landing sequence, it was a little risky airing it live.  Some years afterward we found out that the landing computer “overloaded” and began spewing error codes, and rather than wasting effort to translate the codes Armstrong and Aldrin shut it off and flew the Eagle in manually.  They landed with 30 seconds of fuel remaining.  Here are some highlights:

People worldwide were glued to their TV sets.  For at least a brief moment, it seemed humanity shared a common dream, embodied by two men and an idea.  It was a monumental feat carried out at great risk.  I do not believe that a mission like this could even be carried out today as risk averse as we seem to be, and as evidenced by the fact that manned space flight has been all but abandoned.  And we are worse off for it.