Neil Armstrong's Death Today Deprives Us of One of the Greatest Embodiments of American Exceptionalism Most Dramatically Exemplified When He Was the First Human to Walk on the Moon on the Apollo 11 Mission on July 20, 1969. 

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World still celebrates America's Apollo 11 mission for first moon landing in 1969 and venerates Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and NASA..·

By Jim Wrenn, 
Editor and Washington Bureau Drawer Chief at PoliSat.Com. 
July 20, 2009--

            The world still celebrates America's Apollo 11 mission for the first moon landing on July 20, 1969.  Likewise, the world still venerates Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and NASA.. 

            As the world celebrated while watching live television broadcasts (in black and white in those days when video was still in its infancy), virtually no one outside top echelons at NASA knew what an extraordinary feat the pilot of the lunar lander, Neil Armstrong, accomplished by landing safely.  

          Realizing that the computer guiding the landing trajectory was being taxed beyond its capacity, Armstrong took control of the lander manually and guided it over and across boulder-filled areas to finally find a safe landing spot with only 15 seconds of fuel left.  Once this information became public, everyone understood why Mission Control in Houston replied to Armstrong's statement, "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" by not merely expressing elation but also saying, "Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground-- you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue-- we're breathing again, thanks a lot." because they had been holding their collective breath in fear that he would run out of fuel before being able to find a safe landing spot.  

          Computers inside wristwatches in the 21st Century have more computing power than the computer that was unsuccessfully attempting to guide the descent and landing. 1969 technology could not have sent to the moon a computer with the processing power of a modern laptop because in 1969 technology, such computer would have been much larger than the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo 11 to the moon.  

          Having virtually wasted decades without returning to the moon after the Apollo 17 mission, the time is long, long, long, long overdue for us to return to the moon and establish a permanent base.  Among advantages of doing so would be to develop the means of regularly retrieving and returning to Earth the isotope Helium-3, which is abundant on the moon.  On Earth, it's extremely expensive to create extremely small amounts.  Helium 3 offers the best prospect of enabling engineering advancements to use fusion (which, unlike fission, does not produce toxic wastes) as a means of generating power from Helium-3, which sufficiently abundant on the moon to provide power for Earth for centuries.  Let's get rolling.  Let's stop listening to the "perfect world" crowd (to whom our leaders and American voters foolishly listened after Apollo 17) saying we should "solve problems on Earth" such as "eliminating poverty" before spending vast sums to continue and expand exploration of the moon.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.

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