Pioneering Space

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Pioneering Space

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Those words, spoken by Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, have passed into history. Their emotional delivery, their meaning, and the historically monumental event they commemorate make them some of the most famous words ever spoken. Anyone who was old enough to remember the time can probably remember exactly where he or she was and what he or she was doing when man first walked on the moon. Along with the inscription on the plaque placed at the point of the landing ("we came in peace for all mankind"), Armstrong's words are often enough to bring tears to the eyes of nearly every American and indeed much of the world. As great an accomplishment as man's landing on the moon is, however, there are other momentous events that often seem forgotten in the glare of celebrity afforded to the space program's manned missions.

How many people can remember where they were when the first man-made object left the bounds of our solar system? How many people can even remember what that object was? It was the Pioneer X spacecraft, and it left the solar system in mid-1987 without much fanfare. Think of it, the first object from earth that has broken through the realm of our solar system went relatively unnoticed. In terms of our position in the vastness of space, the walk on the moon was a trip to the house next door; Pioneer left our neighborhood completely to search for the answers to some of our most basic questions about the origins and nature of the universe. It carried with it a plaque to announce our existence and position in the galaxy to any alien civilization who found it. In the grand scheme of things the Pioneer X and XI de...

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...ght is what keeps the program in the public eye in the first place. Thus, while the administration may focus a somewhat larger portion of their funding toward unmanned exploration, the real reason for NASA as a public entity is so Americans and the world can watch with some measure of their old fascination the spectacle of human beings stepping beyond their earthly cribs into the cosmic playground.

Works Cited

Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon, New York: Penguin, 1994.

Gatland, Kenneth. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. New York: Salamander, 1989.

Launius, Roger D. Frontiers of Space Exploration. Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1998.

Muckley, Ed. personal interview. Canton, OH. 31 Oct. 1998.

Osman, Tony. Space History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.

Yenne, Bill. The Encyclopedia of U.S. Spacecraft. New York: Bison, 1985.

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