PD Editorial: When moon landing united the Earth

Forty-five years ago Sunday, with millions of people around the globe watching history unfold on their television screens, Neil Armstrong stepped from a landing craft and onto the lunar surface.

Less than 66 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, mankind had reached the moon. Those first steps on an extraterrestrial surface, in a place called the Sea of Tranquility, captured the world’s imagination, taking space travel from the pages of science-fiction novels into reality.

More than that, the moon mission affirmed human ambition, ingenuity and curiosity, overshadowing - at least briefly - the Cold War roots of the space program.

Armstrong’s first words are among the most famous ever spoken: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin spent about 21½ hours on the lunar surface. They returned to Earth three days later with Apollo 11 pilot Michael Collins, receiving a hero’s welcome after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

Talk soon turned to lunar colonies and missions to Mars and beyond. But the wonder faded quickly.

Three years later, after five more moon landings, Congress canceled the Apollo space program as a cost-saving measure. Since then, NASA has launched two space stations and scores of satellites into Earth’s orbit, and the space agency has sent probes into distant parts of the solar system. But NASA hasn’t launched a manned vessel into space since the shuttle program ended in 2011.

Today, private companies offer launch services for satellites, and entrepreneurs in the United States and abroad are trying to develop space tourism. In 2012, a Dutch nonprofit announced plans for a one-way mission to Mars with the goal of establishing a human colony.

NASA, meanwhile, is planning a return to manned space flight, with another trip to the moon, followed by a mission to Mars to follow. But funding is short and the timing uncertain.

For Aldrin, a Mars mission has become a personal cause.

“There are eight U.S. astronauts left out of the 12 who walked on the moon,” he wrote in an essay for the current edition of Time magazine. “All of us are in the eighth decade of our lives. Each of us can attest to the importance of continuing human exploration of space and the tremendous impact it has had on so many facets of our society. The technical innovations, scientific achievements, medical breakthroughs, environmental enhancements, national defense improvements and educational impacts have been immeasurable.”

Aldrin is right. Advances attributed to the space program range from freeze-dried food and advances in water filtration to cordless power tools and portable computers. An active space program surely would produce more such innovations. But with tight budgets, and without the fears, rational or not, of falling behind a Cold War rival, or some other unifying force, a U.S. mission to Mars, with a safe return, is probably in the distant future.

Apollo 11 carried artifacts from the Wright brothers’ first flight - a piece of a propeller and some fabric from a wing. Here’s a worthy goal: A team of astronauts, carrying mementos from the moon landing, viewing Earth from the Martian surface before the 66th anniversary of Armstrong’s famous step.