Posted by
Catmman on Monday, July 20, 2009 4:33:18 PM
I've read many articles and blog posts and watched quite a few shows over the past week about the triumph of the Apollo 11 mission and the first landing on the moon. Something missing from most of the articles and shows is the credit to the American spirit which drove the program. There has been much effusive prose and commentary about how this is a crowning achievement for humanity, a triumph of the human spirit, etc. While this is technically true, is ignores a fundamental truth - Humanity didn't go to the Moon.
The United States did.
The "Space Program", indeed the entire "Space Race" was a uniquely American idea and achievement. Yes the Soviets dabbled, their crowning achievement being orbiting a "satellite" (Sputnik) in 1957. Yes they put some men in orbit and shot some rockets into the atmosphere. But it took an American idea to go the next step. The Soviets could have done the same thing we did, had they the will. Technologically in those early days, both countries programs were pretty much identical, as were the achievements. For all their posturing and bravado, the Soviets (now Russia) haven't done what we did, even in the intervening years since 1969. They didn't have the will. We did. We won.
To the detractors who would say mine is a purely egocentric, nay an Amerocentric point of view and refuses to acknowledge other facts, I would say, ours is the flag on the Moon, no one elses.
Notwithstanding Neil Armstrong's poignant line "...one giant leap for mankind." those weren't UN flags on the Saturn 5 rocket, the capsule, orbiter, or lunar module. It wasn't a "flags of Nations" quilt the astronauts planted on the surface. It was "Old Glory" - the good old red, white and blue. 'Human' spirit? Please.
An American President set the goal. American taxpayers footed the bill. American scientists, engineers and technicians did the work, and American Astronauts flew the missions and put their lives on the line. Not a "global village". Not a "community of nations". Americans. Note: Yes, I realize there were folks of other 'nationalities' who worked on the program. But they did so under the auspices of American direction and in some cases as American citizens. In today's understanding, there was nothing "international" about the space program.
Humanity hasn't accomplished, nor endeavored to accomplish what America did. Other nations like Japan, India and China have only begun the first tentative steps to even begin discussing doing what we did - 40 years ago! Everything about today's anniversary should be a celebration of what makes America great - individualism, ruggedness, perseverance, determination, risk taking, you name it. There were no commitees determining the gender of the crews. There were no politically correct mission statements. We went to the Moon "because it is hard".
Only America, the United States, supplied what was needed to walk on another celestial body - American exceptionalism.