The greatest adventure in human history had perhaps many starting points — but, if you were to pick just one, you might say it began with a speech. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and set a goal: that, before the end of the ’60s, an American would set foot on the Moon. It was ambitious — impractical, even — but also, the late president must have thought, achievable. He would never know it, having died two short years later, but on July 20, 1969, with less than six months left in the decade, Neil Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Module’s ladder to utter his famous words: “That’s one small step for man…”
Over the next three and a half years, a total of twelve men would reach the Moon, culminating with Gene Cernan, who recently, on January 17, 2017, died at the age of 82. According to some, Cernan was often troubled by the superlative that defined the last man on the Moon. Like many astronauts of the Apollo era, he believed, firmly, that humans would return there sometime in his lifetime. In 2010, Cernan, joined by Neil Armstrong, testified before Congress in opposition to the cancellation of the Constellation program, a $230 billion program developed by NASA with three major goals: complete the International Space Station, return to the Moon no later than 2020 and, finally, send humans to Mars in the 2030s.
They lost.
At the time of his passing, social media sites like Twitter swelled with Cernan’s words: “Curiosity is the essence of human existence,” he once said. “It is our destiny to explore.”
So to all who read this — despite your provenance, social class or political affiliation — I challenge you to set your own exploration goal for 2017. Touch a famous landmark, visit a new continent, or simply make a point to see the other side of town. It might not be the Moon. But every leap has its starting point: the courage to step farther than you’ve ever been before.
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