In May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave his famous moon speech. Eight years later, the Eagle landed.
This triumph of American exceptionalism did not occur in a vacuum. It did, but not like that. It was the culmination of a decade of engineering breakthroughs at an unprecedented rate, hundreds of thousands of laborers working tirelessly, spilled brains in the back of a Lincoln--and so much more.
Iterative development, one step after another, got us to Tranquility Crater. First, the Mercury program just to show we could go up there. Then, Gemini let us walk. When that Saturn V lifted off, it was the sum of all that came before it.
Alan Shepard is my Instagram Story. TwoPen is Ed White opening the hatch to venture into the abyss for the first time.