I just wrote a thing about this on facebook.

49 years. Forty. Nine. Years.

49 years after Kitty Hawk, there was a thriving, world-wide aviation industry.

49 years after Trinity, despite a huge backlash, 20% of US electricity was produced by nuclear power.

49 years after becoming the first (and so far, only) country to walk on the freakin moon, you can't even get into low earth orbit without hitchhiking,

My 2nd daughter as born on the night of the moon launch, and I was home the day they landed. I was 22 years old. It was absolutely unbelievable that earthlings stood on another planet for the first time in history. ( I know the moon isn't a planet but you know what I mean). We were outside at night looking at the moon, to memorialize the occasion. Just to see the moon in the sky, so far away, and know that humans were standing on it, was mind blowing.

It was fantastic and I still think it's brilliant. 'Space, the final frontier.....'

I remember being as excited as a kid could be. I begged my mom to let me stay up to watch, we settled on a compromise instead. I went to bed on time, but she got me up so I could watch it as it happened. It was just a couple of weeks before my 8th birthday.
It was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. I wanted to grow up to be a scientist so badly.

Thanks for the heads up!
It was one of the strangest days of my life!

My friend Gary and I were hitchhiking from Santa Cruz back to Sacramento when we were dropped off in Emeryville next to Berkeley we walked to into town no one about no cars moving, it was like being in a Twilight Zone episode. Not one person walking anywhere, no cars moving anywhere! Finally we found a tavern with it front door open about an hour later! That is when we learned that that the USA had a man walking on the moon! We continues walking, then suddenly the streets fill with people and cars were now moving as we reached Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley. It remains one of my most haunting experiences of my life!

Giggles

The landing is actually my very first solid memory...watching it on TV...and everyone saying how important it was.