Apollo proved that any goal was possible

One simply had to work hard, reach for the stars

Fifty years ago, Apollo 11 united a country at a much-needed moment, and set an example that still stands today.

The 1960s were tumultuous. The Vietnam War, the fight for civil rights, and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. all took place in a decade marked by riots, unrest and turbulence.

But Kennedy began the decade with a goal. In 1961, he told Congress that the space program needed to be a priority, noting, “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

The men and women at NASA brought that dream to fruition, capping a tumultuous decade.

However, bringing Kennedy’s dream to fruition was no easy task.

In 1961, as part of Project Mercury, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space. John Glenn Jr. continued to blaze new trails, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.

Project Gemini followed, which introduced spacewalks and spacecraft dockings as astronauts learned “to live and work, and even troubleshoot, in space,” NASA reports.

The Apollo program began with tragedy in 1967, when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a flash fire during a launch pad test, later named Apollo 1.

By Apollo 8, however, in 1968, NASA sent astronauts to orbit the moon.

And on July 20, 1969, with Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. NASA estimates 530 million people watched that moment on television.

The venture was an expensive one, involving unimaginable work hours, 400,000 people and a price tag in the billions, The Associated Press reports.

Through the strife, the turmoil and the pain of that decade, NASA still delivered on a dream, meeting an impossible goal with time to spare.

The message is still true today: When we dare to dream, when we dare to reach for the stars, we can achieve any goal — no matter the size.

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