Moon landing was triumph for America

Many of America’s defining moments have been traumatic in nature.

People remember where they were and what they were doing when the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, when President John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963, and when terrorists struck our nation on Sept. 11, 2001.

These are dates and moments people never forget.

Even some of our most memorable happy occasions were tied to troubling events. The celebrations of V-E Day and V-J Day at the end of World War II were jubilant, but our nation and the world had to endure years of agony to get there.

This weekend we look back on an unquestionably happy event as memorable as any in human history.

On July 20, 1969 — a halfcentury ago — two American astronauts became the first people to set foot on the moon. Few who lived through it will ever forget it.

The feat still seems astonishing all these years later, even with the tremendous technological advancements we’ve seen.

The attempt was inspired by Kennedy, who declared it should be our nation’s goal to land a man on the moon by the time the 1960s concluded.

He first brought up the idea in a speech to Congress in 1961, then reiterated it in resounding fashion during a Sept. 12, 1962, speech in Houston.

“We choose to go to the moon,” he declared in one of his best-remembered speeches, one in which he invoked America’s pioneer spirit and unquenching desire for greatness.

The idea seemed farfetched. America was still lagging behind the Soviet Union in the space race in the early ‘60s.

And there were serious questions about whether the goal was worth the considerable costs that would be required to even attempt to achieve it.

Nevertheless, a heroic effort ensued.

Scientists, engineers and, of course, our brave corps of astronauts made tremendous sacrifices to turn the stuff of science fiction into reality. Some even lost their lives in the process.

Today we must ask what it took to bring about such a unified national effort, one that seems impossible to fathom in today’s environment.

Was it the power of Kennedy’s rhetoric? Was it a desire to fulfill his legacy after his assassination?

Or was it, as Kennedy suggested, the true questing nature of Americans coming through?

One thing is certain. This nation desperately needs leadership that calls on Americans to follow their best impulses and that exhorts us, as Kennedy famously said, to do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

For too long America’s leaders have been putting off difficult choices in the name of political expediency. It’s not going to work forever.

The moon landing was a bright moment in a troubled time. America and the world were experiencing tremendous turmoil in the late 1960s, far worse than the constant conflict we bemoan today.

But for a few days in the summer of 1969, most of the nation and the world were gripped by a great American achievement.

It was one initiated by a Democratic administration and completed by a Republican one.

And though the space race was very much part of the Cold War, the moon landing was seen as much as a human achievement as an American triumph.

We badly need a sense of pride that cuts across political and national lines. Let us all redouble our efforts to soon bring about a day when that feeling is rekindled.