40 Years Ago.. it seems like yesterday

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Celebrates Man's First Steps on the Moon

(I took this photo of the moon on July 7th at 5:30 am)

Kennedy Space Center:
Just 40 years ago, the Earth stood still to watch as the crew of Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Four days earlier, the intrepid crew of three men, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, launched aboard the massive Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center, carrying the hopes and dreams of mankind with them.

Apollo 40th Anniversary
Join Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on July 16, 2009, in celebrating the 40th Anniversary of mankind’s famous first steps on the moon.

Astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11;

Charlie Duke, Apollo 16;

Al Worden, Apollo 15;

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14;

and Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7,

will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and mark the opening of a new exhibit at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, the Apollo Treasures Gallery.

And there's a chance that I will be there!!!!......

 

Every time I speak of the men who raced to the moon I choke up.  I've said it time after time.. they are my hero's.

With each blast off ... I'd cry because they made it up safe!

With each splash down... I'd cry because they made it home!

To this day, over 40 yrs later ,they can still make me cry, they are still my hero's, and there will never by anyone quite like the Astronauts from Gemini, Apollo, and Mercury missions again.

I learned of this Anniversary celebration going on at the Space Center and wanted to go so bad .. I can't begin to tell you.  I mean, I lived in Florida for 13 yrs once before and I was watching the sky when they blasted off and I saw the vapor trail of those who died in Challenger.

 

Oh  yeah.. even today they still make me cry.

I cannot forget the extreme danger they were always in.

(that's not to say todays astronauts are not in danger, they are.. but we do know a lot more now than we did back then.  Back then everything was a first.)

I cannot forget those we lost.

I cannot forget every blast off and every splashdown.

And I cannot forget that we never went back to the moon!..

But now they are planning on going back...many more years later than I  had expected of them.  It will still be about 10 yrs before we land on the moon once again.  I hope I am alive to see it, and to see if the newer generation embraces  it as I did. 

They should.

After all... it's our future.