40 Years Ago: Apollo 11

Unlike Michael Okuda and many others around the world, I was still too young to remember anything I might have seen that day, somewhere in upper Alberta, two or three time zones away from all the excitement. What I do remember is reading through the Collier's Encyclopedia entry on Space Exploration in the years that followed.

The edition my parents had bought was published at a point where the Apollo program had not yet run the course laid out for it by the Nixon administration in spite of the hopes of many across the world. In fact, the end of it had not yet been written officially when Collier's went to press. The projected mission schedule's forecast still maintained that Apollo flights would number into the 20's before they stopped in favour of the preferred form of space shuttle then expected to succeed Apollo.

I remember the fascination - obsession? - that began with the photography and technical illustrations in that book. It was fed by the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program that ended up being the true last gasp of the first space age. By Space: 1999, by Star Wars, the original Galactica, and eventually Star Trek itself to keep me going until the first of the shuttle launches.

We've been through a lot of flights, good and bad, since then.

And now on this anniversary, we have another first: two Canadians together with eleven others from four nations: the United States, Russia, Belgium, and Japan. One of those is the 500th human to go Up There Into the Black.

From Yuri Gagarin to Christopher Cassidy: only 500 so far.

There should have been much more than this by now. We ought to have done much more than this.

That we've managed this much despite our best and worst instincts is still a miracle when you look at it carefully.

To everyone involved, whether you recognize that involvement for what it is or not: thank you.

Thank you.