Man On The Moon

I remember a July evening back in 1969. It was July 20 to be precise. I was a kid, lying on my back on the living room floor and watching television.

As I watched, Neil Armstrong took that long step from the ladder on the side of Eagle, the lunar module, and stepped, albeit a bit awkwardly, onto the surface of the moon.

I didn't know it then, but eventually I would come to live in Houston, home of NASA and most of the astronauts. Houston, as you probably know, was the first word uttered by Armstrong after he and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the moon's surface in the Sea of Tranquility with only seconds of fuel left.

Armstrong reported in to NASA command center in Houston: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Houston responded: "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again."

At 10:28 p.m. EDT, Armstrong turned on the video cameras, and more than half a billion people on this planet watched in amazement as the first humans walked on the moon.

Neil Armstrong took the first step. As he touched down on the lunar surface, he said: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Then, Buzz Aldrin climbed down a few minutes later and joined Armstrong. Hardly anyone knows what Aldrin said, but it was this: "I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way."

Aldrin, a church elder, used a pastor's home communion kit that was given to him by Dean Woodruff. With it, he gave himself Communion on the surface of the Moon, reciting the words used by his own pastor at Webster Presbyterian Church. He kept this a secret because of a lawsuit brought by atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair over the reading of Genesis on Apollo 8.

The Lunar Plaque, (Image, Courtesy of http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/) left on the moon is inscribed: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind. Neil Armstrong"

Takeaway Truth

We came in peace. So say we all.