It was in 1903 that the Wright Brothers conducted the first man made machine flight in history. 66 years later, on July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin embarked on a mission that allowed the human race to finally introduce itself properly to our Moon. The amount of aerial distance traveled between these two dates speaks more to the word further than farther. How we went from flying for 12 seconds at 10 feet above the ground for a distance of 120 feet at a speed 6mph to traveling for 4 days to a distance 238,855 miles away at an average speed of 1,700 mph is mind boggling to comprehend. We’ve gone further in aeronautics and aviation in a relatively short period of time than previously thought possible. This was certainly a giant leap for mankind.

Today, all over America, people are honoring that historic flight towards the Moon and our kinship with the universe. Much has happened since that launch – the years have been short but they days were long. Nonetheless, the memory sharpens. The namable heroes in our history are certainly in a minority. However, in the minority of the minority are the two men that stepped on the lunar surface and erased away the people we were going to be – merely Earthlings. That launch forty years ago set the precedent for the Apollo missions in the years to follow and for the Moon initiative that NASA is working towards today. The footprints tattooed on that virtually untouched surface have constructed a house of meetings for all pioneers who want to continue pushing out beyond our celestial suburb and into the vastness of space.

Our wing tipped ambition is by no means clipped. Buzz Aldrin stated just today, in fact, that our space program should be focused on landing a manned craft on the surface of Mars rather than back onto the Moon. He thinks we need to push further and farther than we already have. We are children of imagination, which is the strongest virtue of our humanity. Our generation’s responsibility is to declare in as high a voice that here in reality, what we make-believe we truly can make happen. The Moon’s shine is a reflection on the fiery light of the sun, which helps us navigate through the dark of night. It, for most of our history, allowed us to lengthen our legs and travel in the unknown of the evening twilight. Our landing on our spotlight in the dark is another type of reflection – it is a signal of the awesome force of our ingenuity and the fearlessness of the US aeronautics program. History is made through these facilities and during these moments. Dominate the ones you have. Look into aeronautics and aviation today.