Today we celebrate a very special Big Five Oh. It\’s fifty years since Apollo 11 blasted off and headed for the moon. Somehow it seems appropriate that the moon is at the full. I saw it while I was out riding this morning. Beautiful!

I’ve read a lot about the RMS Titanic, and how exciting the city of Belfast found her launching. That was in 1911 . Fast-forward to 1969. The launch of Apollo 11 must have generated the same kind of thrill. Quite likely a much bigger one. The Titanic was the largest ship of her day, expected to go on to a glorious career. Now, we were sending men to the Moon!

Fortunately, unlike the Titanic\’s maiden  voyage, the Apollo 11 mission was a success.

I remember a 25th anniversary program (I still had a TV then) about the first moon landing. I think they said the lunar module came within seconds of running out of fuel before landing; something about the originally planned touchdown site being too rocky, which hadn\’t been discernible through Earth-based telescopes. There was footage of one of the astronauts taking huge bounds across the surface and saying, \”Hey, man! This is GREAT!!\”

Now we have some great memories, thanks to those pioneers of space, and all the workers who helped get them there. It makes today a very special Big Five Oh.