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<\/a><\/p>\nJust in case you didn\u2019t notice, we just flew to the moon<\/a>!<\/p>\n Growing up, I, along with the rest of the country, was fixated on every Mercury blastoff, every Gemini launch, every Apollo mission.\u00a0 That culminated with human beings actually landing on the moon!<\/p>\n The first moon landing<\/a> was on July, 1969, 56 years ago!\u00a0 That was followed by six more lunar landings, with the last being in December, 1972, 53 years ago!\u00a0 Then the U.S. space program stopped flying to the moon, focusing instead on orbiting the earth in Space Shuttles and the International Space Station.<\/p>\n Now, after half a century<\/em>, we headed to the moon again.\u00a0 There seemed to be little\u00a0 attention to the build-up of this astonishing venture, though after the launch and the public realized what was happening, that changed.<\/p>\n The four astronauts<\/a>\u2013Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada\u2019s Jeremy Hansen\u2013flew farther away from planet Earth than anyone in history, 252,756 miles.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t land on the moon\u2013that is being planned for later\u2013but they swung around it, peering at the Dark Side of the Moon and sending back awe-inspiring photographs.\u00a0 Then, after nine days in space, they came back home, safely.<\/p>\n Some conservatives looked askance at the four astronauts as if they were picked by a DEI committee, since they were a white man, a black man, a woman, and a Canadian.\u00a0 By all accounts, though, they constituted a good team.\u00a0 And there are many ways to parse diversity.\u00a0 The pilot, Victor Glover, is not only a black man, he is a member of another minority group:\u00a0 he is a devout Christian,<\/a> who talked openly about his faith in Jesus.\u00a0 Just before they went behind the moon, out of radio contact, he said this to planet Earth:<\/p>\n \u201cAs we get close to the nearest point to the moon and farthest point from Earth \u2014 as we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos \u2014 I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on Earth,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s love,\u201d he added. \u201cChrist said in response to what was the greatest command that it was to love God with all that you are. And he also, being a great teacher, said the second is equal to it, and that to is love your neighbor as yourself.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so, as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we\u2019re still able to feel your love from Earth. And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Coming home was the most perilous part<\/a> of a dangerous mission.\u00a0 When the unmanned Artemis I flew back into Earth\u2019s atmosphere, the heat shield, which had to protect the space ship from temperatures of 5000 degrees, cracked and chunks flew off<\/a>. This, along with other technological glitches, delayed the manned flight, Artemis II, for two years.\u00a0 But there was no time to completely redesign and test the heat shield, so the manned mission went ahead with the same basic heat shield used a half-century ago.\u00a0 Engineers calculated that if the ship re-entered the Earth\u2019s atmosphere at a different angle, the heat shield would not have to hold off the high temperatures for so long and the astronauts would be OK.<\/p>\n Charlie Camarda, a former astronaut and a senior engineer at NASA, opposed the launch. Describing the re-entry as being inside a fireball for 15 minutes,\u00a0 he told Frannie Block<\/a> of the Free Press<\/em>, that the heat shield should have been redesigned.\u00a0 But he still expressed confidence that the astronauts would come home safely.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThey\u2019re going to come back safe because we\u2019re going to be praying for them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Americans had gotten so used to successful flights that when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff in 1986 and then the space shuttle Columbia burned up in re-entry in 2003\u2013because of a faulty heat shield\u2013it hit us hard.\u00a0 Over that period, extending into today, it seemed that America\u2019s projects kept going wrong.\u00a0 The optimism of the 1960s and 1970s turned into a broader cynicism.<\/p>\n But this time the math and the physics worked\u2013a testimony to the order of God\u2019s creation\u2013as did Mr. Camarda\u2019s prayers.\u00a0 Speeding into the Earth at 24,661 mph<\/a>, 33 times the speed of sound, Artemis II came back right on target, splashing into the ocean 40 or so miles west of San Diego<\/a>, where they were plucked out of the water without incident.<\/p>\n I remember how the early space flights captured my imagination when I was young.\u00a0 This one seems to have captured the imagination of at least some young people.\u00a0 Before the launch, my 8-year-old granddaughter asked me, \u201cAre there aliens on the moon?\u201d\u00a0 I told her that space aliens are in stories and on shows, but we haven\u2019t found any in real life.\u00a0 After the launch, she said that she wanted to be an astronaut.\u00a0 She said that she needed to start saving up her money so she could buy a space ship.<\/p>\n So she raises a good issue.\u00a0 The Artemis program so far has cost $93 billion<\/a>.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a bit more than my granddaughter\u2019s allowance.\u00a0 Is it worth it?\u00a0 Hard to say.\u00a0 But, by way of comparison, the federal government spends $88 billion per month<\/a> to cover the interest on our national debt.\u00a0 The Department of Education, widely considered unnecessary, gets $106 billion<\/a> per year.<\/p>\n The intangible value of an achievement like this can be seen in a conversation my daughter told me about when she was living in Australia.\u00a0 She said she was complaining about something\u2013she can\u2019t remember what it was\u2013and used the by now familiar formula:\u00a0 \u201cWe can put a man on the moon, but we can\u2019t [whatever it was]!\u201d\u00a0 Her Aussie pastor was there, and he replied, \u201cWe<\/em> can\u2019t put a man on the moon.\u00a0 The Americans did that!\u201d<\/p>\n Exactly!\u00a0 Americans\u2013with our pioneering spirit, technical ingenuity, and courageous optimism\u2013did that!\u00a0 No other country, so far, has even tried.\u00a0 We had gotten down on our country and what it is capable of.\u00a0 But we just flew to the moon!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Photo:\u00a0 Crescent Earth Over Lunar Horizon<\/a>,\u00a0art002e015231 (April 6, 2026) \u2013 The Artemis II crew captures a faint view of a crescent Earth above the horizon on the Moon\u2019s far side. Credit: NASA via Flickr, in accord with NASA Images and Media Guidelines.<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just in case you didn’t notice, we just flew to the moon! After over 50 years, American have returned to the moon. The magnitude of that accomplishment and what it means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":90525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20,34,40,44],"tags":[18261,18255,225,18258],"class_list":["post-90513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-history","category-personal","category-science","category-technology","tag-americas-space-program","tag-artemis-ii","tag-astronauts","tag-flights-to-the-moon"],"yoast_head":"\n\n