I’m pre-empting the promised part two of my Dr. Pepper Peeps saga because a more time-sensitive topic has grabbed hold of me and won’t let go. How can I not write this week about human beings returning to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years?
Those of us of a certain age will never forget space travel in its infancy. Mine is the generation that still remembers somebody’s dad lugging a cumbersome “portable” TV into our elementary school classroom so we kids could cluster around it and watch the likes of Alan Shepard and John Glenn and Scott Carpenter lift off into outer space. We remember the sad, sad day in 1967 when, during a preflight test for what was to be the first manned Apollo mission, fire claimed the lives of the three American astronauts on board.
And, of course, we remember the first lunar landing.
President Kennedy set a lofty goal not long after he took office in 1961: the United States would land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the decade came to a close. In 1969, that dream became reality. On July 20, my family and I were among the hundreds of million people around the world closely following the news as the lunar module named “The Eagle” separated from its command module and then descended and touched down at the edge of the Sea of Tranquility on the moon’s surface.
“The Eagle has landed,” Neil Armstrong announced.
Soon, the world would watch—in grainy black-and-white live camera footage–as Armstrong stepped onto the undisturbed dusty surface of the moon and spoke the words that still swell in the hearts of everyone who heard them: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Five more successful lunar landing missions would follow. The last men to walk on the moon were members of the Apollo 17 mission, who departed the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. No human would return to the moon’s orbit in the 53 years that followed.
Why not? Money, for one thing. The Apollo program was labor intensive and cost most than 24 billion dollars (in those days’ dollars). NASA became involved in other projects. Neither Russia nor China focused on lunar exploration.
Our poor ole moon, hanging up there in the sky for more than four billion years, seemed almost forgotten.
Until now. The astronauts on Artemis II, following the same figure-eight path that Apollo 13 blazed back in 1970, travelled further from earth—by about 4,000 miles—than anyone has ever gone before. On a six-hour lunar flyby, the astronauts saw views of the moon’s far side that no space travelers had yet seen. They were treated to a view of a total solar eclipse as the moon blocked the sun. They took pictures. They collected scientific data. They set the stage for the Artemis III crew, which—in orbit around Earth—will practice docking with lunar landers.
Then, if all goes as planned, Artemis IV will land near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
As I prepare to send this column to my Herald-Citizen editors, the Artemis II astronauts are still in space. They’re not scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocen near San Diego until after the print edition of this newspaper is on its way to your mailbox. On this Wednesday morning, I can only hope and pray that all goes well.
During these troubled times in which we find ourselves, as the specter of war hangs over the globe, I pause to give thanks for space exploration. I think about the plaque the Apolo 11 astronauts left on the moon all those years ago, right beside the American flag. HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT ON THE MOON—JULY 1969 AD–it reads. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.
Amen.
(April 11, 2026)