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Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch for the Moon. Tomorrow is my father's birthday, though he's no longer with me to celebrate. For me, these two things are always connected. They were for him too.
My father was 26 years old when Apollo 11 went for the Moon. The next year, a few months after July, he would hold his second child in his arms. Me. Old enough to be a father. Old enough to be finishing his degrees in Math and Physics. Old enough to be vibrantly alive and excited at the achievement NASA accomplished. He never said, but I always suspected that to him, this was the ultimate birthday present. He'd been making model rockets since the age of 11. Rockets were what made him pursue Physics, photography and optics as his passion. Rockets, Astronomy and electricity made his life what it was.
Rockets.
Without the space program, my father wouldn't have been the man he was. He wouldn't have made the contributions that he did where he became not only my father, but in many ways, the Father of ESD/EOS Measurement & Maintenance. His paper on Human ESD Events is still the ground work that all other engineers and physicists use to this day. His patents the ones that all other companies use for every computer and television on the planet for ESD suppression and hardening.
So I don't want anyone to tell me that the space program doesn't matter.
You have no idea how much it matters.
Out there, right now, somewhere, is an 11 year old. Girl, boy, doesn't matter. That child is hungry for the same things that my father was.
We cannot fail that child. That child, with the right inspiration, can change the world. After all, I saw how my father did.
Are you listening, President Obama? Are you listening, Burt Rutan?
I'm counting on you.
Don't let me down.
My father was 26 years old when Apollo 11 went for the Moon. The next year, a few months after July, he would hold his second child in his arms. Me. Old enough to be a father. Old enough to be finishing his degrees in Math and Physics. Old enough to be vibrantly alive and excited at the achievement NASA accomplished. He never said, but I always suspected that to him, this was the ultimate birthday present. He'd been making model rockets since the age of 11. Rockets were what made him pursue Physics, photography and optics as his passion. Rockets, Astronomy and electricity made his life what it was.
Rockets.
Without the space program, my father wouldn't have been the man he was. He wouldn't have made the contributions that he did where he became not only my father, but in many ways, the Father of ESD/EOS Measurement & Maintenance. His paper on Human ESD Events is still the ground work that all other engineers and physicists use to this day. His patents the ones that all other companies use for every computer and television on the planet for ESD suppression and hardening.
So I don't want anyone to tell me that the space program doesn't matter.
You have no idea how much it matters.
Out there, right now, somewhere, is an 11 year old. Girl, boy, doesn't matter. That child is hungry for the same things that my father was.
We cannot fail that child. That child, with the right inspiration, can change the world. After all, I saw how my father did.
Are you listening, President Obama? Are you listening, Burt Rutan?
I'm counting on you.
Don't let me down.
