28 May 2008
The U.S. continues it’s space exploration with the successful landing of Phoenix, the Mars explorer. I had the privilege of being up front and close to our lunar landing. My husband was the Project Manager for Boeing’s Apollo 11 thru 15 space program. We spent an exciting three years at Boeing’s Corporate Headquarters in Texas about 30 miles southwest of Houston. The U.S. space program had losses but the astronauts were explorers in space and they knew the risks that they faced. I watched the “moon shot” liftoff from a Boeing launch one mile off shore from the Apollo Mission launch site. Each one of us on that boat had the feeling the we were helping that ship push off into space. On July 20th 1969 the world watched man step onto the moon’s surface.
We are in a new phase of space exploration and the quest for knowledge of the universe marches on. I think that deep down most of us want to know what’s “out there.” Things that I read about in science fiction and comic books as a child, have come to pass. Now we are digging deeper and I mean that literally as the Phoenix digs into the Martian earth to see what can be discovered. The scientific world waits with baited breath to see what is found under the crust of Mars. One day my grandchildren may be able to see a man or woman walk on mars.
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