On July 20, 1969, when I was only nine years old, humans landed on the moon. Human beings boarded a rocket and flew more than 340,000 kilometers to another world! We were pushing the boundaries of our tiny planet and reaching out, however tentatively, to the stars. Right now, in 2012, my oldest son in 8 years old and NASA doesn't even have its own reusable spacecraft. The moon seems as far away as it ever did, and as excited as I am about Curiosity's landing on Mars, we haven't progressed beyond simple rovers.
We used to be a people poised on the edge of space and now we're Earthbound, tied down by our petty wars and small imaginations. I want a world where my sons can share in the wonder of exploring worlds beyond this one, of reaching out into the universe . . . just a little father than the generation before mine did, more than 40 years ago.
Back then, we stretched our wings and tugged at starlight. How did our dreams become so small?
I've never stopped dreaming.
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