Tag: inspiration

On October 4, 1957 Sputnik was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. On the following day an eleven year old “nerd” heard the news and excitedly turned on the family floor model Philco multi-band radio to scan the short wave bands and hear the new baby moon go da-da-da.

On February 20, 1962, a fifteen year old high school junior was enthralled when John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. It was the stuff teen-aged dreams were made of.

On July 20, 1969, a twenty-three year old married father of two was awestruck when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon, a short six years before the martyred president John F. Kennedy has promised the world that we would go to the moon in a decade.
After many years the excitement and wonder of space travel tended to slip from pubic sight with the space shuttle becoming seemingly commonplace with the exception of the loss of the shuttle crew carrying Christa McCauliff.

Today, May 30, 2020, sixty-three years after Sputnik, the United States returned to launching American astronauts from American soil riding American rockets. As a seventy-four year old man I reflect on the dreams and aspirations of that self-proclaimed nerd and dare to hope that somewhere there is eleven year old excited and inspired to perhaps be a part of the American adventure to the stars and beyond.

Godspeed Dragon, may your flight be glorious and a beacon for the new generation of space dreamers.