Did you see Man walk on the Moon 50 years ago?

[Igel]

88. Absolutely.

Asked my father if I could stay up late to watch it. He said yes. He couldn't stay up--he had to be at work before 7 the next morning. Shift work, he had the early shift.

My mother disapproved of NASA. Fortunately, she was working that night--she also worked shifts, and had the midnight shift--so she didn't need to know I was staying up late. The money should have been spent on people, she'd complain, not "wasting" it by trying to go to space when there was suffering on Earth. Sometimes you need to spend money on knowledge or wonder, not just on bread: If you only look at the ground and at your feet, that's the highest you'll achieve.

We had many arguments about that over the years.

But it was really weird and exciting, seeing images of humans so far away, in an environment so incredibly hostile, doing what was wild science fiction a hundred years before.