They put a man on the moon

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 23:56 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Even at the time, we understood that our world had changed and that we could pinpoint this change to almost the second. We didn't have to wait for Neil Armstrong to get out of the lunar module and fumble a portentous remark about a small step for a man. When we heard the words "Houston, Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed," it didn't quite sink in, but then after a short, eerie pause the man at Houston, known only as Capcom, choked a bit and stumbled and then said: "We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again." That was the moment a hundred million people around the world also started breathing again. Apollo was momentous in a way that Yuri Gagarin's first, heroic orbit could never have been. Gagarin had circled the...

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