It was hardly believable. They announced 7 miliary pilots who were training to go to the moon. They would be called astronauts. It was 1959.
Who would have thought it? It was the stuff of science fiction.
To be fair we had sent up satellites. We even put poor animals in some of them. But people???
Of course Russia wanted to beat us to it as much as we wanted to beat them. I always thought that Russia and the United States were part of the Moon Treaty prohibiting a country from claiming any part of space for themselves. Russia and the United States have not signed. But I digress.
The astronauts trained vigorously. NASA worked to perfect the space ships. It was an exciting time.
Finally we were ready to send men to outer space. So was Russia.
Then we sent a man to orbit the Earth. Russia did it before us.
On the day they launched John Glen into space our schools gave us the day off to watch it from home. It was spellbinding. It was a proud day for our country.
Since then there have been tragedies. There have been triumphs. We have seen men walk on the moon. What can be more special?
