50 Years of NASA

Say what you will about the expense, there is something to be said about the granduer of exploring new places.

Just about every science fiction writer has touched on the importance of continuing to push the limits of knowledge and to explore.

NASA has been doing that for 50 years.

For those of us old enough to remember, where were you when Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface?

Think about all those glorious pictures of the universe from the Hubble Telescope. (Thanks in part to the Hubble Space Telescope, we know the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Not 4-6,000 years.)

Look at the data we are getting about Mars today with actual robots roaming around the planet. And to think that it wasn't until the 1970s that we actually saw what the Martian surface really looked like.

So despite the disasters, the bureaucratic foul-ups and the petty bickering, NASA has given us what humans have always dreamed of: A way to touch the stars.

And something has to be said about reaching for dreams beyond our current grasp.