When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins lifted off for the Moon 50 years ago, they were at the vanguard of something new. Nobody had tried to land on the Moon before. Their mission was the work of a lot of people, as Michael Collins states in his lovely narrative of the Google Doodle commemorating the events of his time. When they came home, Collins said they were greeted everywhere with the words “We did it!”

Get that. It was WE, as humans, who did this thing. And, by all rights, WE as humans expected that such explorations would continue. They are, although the reality is very different from what we imagined it might be. Fifty years later, we’re still quibbling about whether to go back or go to Mars or mine an asteroid, or go somewhere else. Should we live on the Moon? Maybe we should colonize Mars? All good questions. And, they’re good ones. They focus us on space exploration. It means we have a LOT of options. We do have the will, as the human collective, to do those things. We also seem to be hanging back and waiting for something. It’s not money, although that’s important. It’s not even political will, although that’s important, too.

So, what is it? Are we paralyzed by too many choices? Hard to pick the right one? Is it a hesitancy to make that giant leap again? Granted, the U.S. doesn’t have the same impetus as we had in the 60s (a Cold War and a staredown with the Soviet Union). We do have an interesting relationship with Russia today, but Russia has its own space program with its own challenges. And, China and Japan are right up there in terms of wanting to push human exploration out through the solar system. Europe has a thriving space program, as well.

Let’s get Moving

Things have changed a lot in 50 years. Those past events point the way to a future in space. It will happen eventually. Who does it, what it looks like, what it will bring to humanity, those are all things we’ll figure out. The Apollo II astronauts did, indeed, herald a new age of exploration and I hope we don’t let them down. They pointed the way. Do we have the will and resources to follow?