THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 174, July 18, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
APOLLO 11: AMERICAN EXCELLENCE REMEMBERED
By Christopher G. Apollo
THE MANNED MOON LANDING, VICTORY IN THE COLD WAR, & THE GREATNESS OF THE AMERICAN NATION:
REMEMBERING & RECOGNIZING AMERICAN SUCCESSES IN OUTER SPACE AS IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO DECISIVE
VICTORY OF THE U.S.A. & THE WEST IN THE THIRD WORLD WAR & THEIR SAVING THE PLANET FROM DOMINATION BY THE
SOVIET UNION -- THE ATTITUDE OF AMERICA'S GENUINE PATRIOTS TOWARD THE HISTORIC "SPACE RACE" BETWEEN THE
U.S.A. & THE U.S.S.R. -- REJECTION OF THE INTERPRETATION ADOPTED & PROMOTED BY AMERICAN LEFTISTS & THE
LIBERAL MEDIA
FULL STORY:
Sunday, July 20, 2008, will likely be a fairly typical summer day in America. People will get up, go to Church, and maybe hold
a barbeque in the back yard. Perhaps the more industrious amongst us will wash the family car. Calmness, serenity, and,
above all, normality will rule the day. And, in a way, that is an awful shame.
Thirty nine years ago on that date (also a Sunday), the nation was anything but normal. Americans huddled around their TV
sets and radios, listening to the almost unintelligible exchange of technical jargon, watching crude network animations,
trying desperately to comprehend the unfolding events a quarter of a million miles away. Few realized just how close the
mission was to total failure, with only seconds of fuel remaining in the spacecraft.
Then, at 4:53 pm eastern time, after a heart-stopping momentary hush, an eight word message, crisp, clear, and easily
discernable, crackled across the void of space and into the homes and businesses of anxiously awaiting Americans. Eight
words that, from that day forward, might well have irrefutably defined the course of this nation, its history, and its legacy in
terms of “before” and “after.” “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” In the aftermath of Neil Armstrong’s
brief declaration, some aspects of life on earth would be changed forever.
During the following twenty one hours, a fantastic drama unfolded as Armstrong set foot on the moon, accompanied a few
moments later by his co-pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. A crude black-and-white television transmission allowed earthlings to
share in the occasion, as the astronauts collected samples, raised the American flag over lunar soil, and talked with the
President via telephone from the Oval Office. Finally, they launched their spacecraft back towards their awaiting colleague
overhead for the journey home.
Back on earth, other forces, more typical of humanity in all of its futility and flailing, were working hard to undo the stunning
success for America that was Apollo 11, along with everything patriotic and good that it represented. Modern academia
vastly prefers, instead to recall the Summer of 1969 with remembrances of “Woodstock,” a four-day tribute to the self
absorption and debauchery of the hippie and flower-child movement.
Even in the midst of the massive parades and celebrations that characterized America’s immediate response to the
successful Apollo mission, its larger significance as a defining event of the Cold War escaped the comprehension of many.
During the years since, this aspect of the “Space Race” between America and the Soviet Union has been all but erased from
consideration. Yet, as an event no less pivotal in its age than was the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II, the
significance of Project Apollo cannot be overstated.
Ultimately, man’s journey to the moon entailed not just the skill and courage of the three astronauts who flew the mission,
but, rather, was the summation of American technical expertise and commitment to the cause. Thus, the feats of Apollo 11
Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins represented a
pivotal moment in a life or death struggle against Soviet Russia for technological dominance of the world. It was in that
realm, far more than in the arena of the traditional military battle, that the encounters of the Cold War would be fought, and
its outcome decided.
Barely a dozen years prior, the gauntlet of this conflict had been thrown down by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. On
October 4, 1957, the world was electrified by the Soviet announcement that it had successfully orbited the world’s first
artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Visible from earth, it sailed dispassionately through the night skies with a menacing silence that
at once promised greater horizons for humanity, accompanied by the appalling threat that such a future might be realized in
a world under the iron fisted dominion of the Soviet Union.
America’s technological superiority, unquestioned at the close of the Second World War as it ushered in the atomic age,
was now seriously in jeopardy. Not only had the Soviets managed to appropriate the secrets of the atomic bomb within five
years of its invention, with the advent of Sputnik and the advances in rocketry it represented, they were quite possibly
equipped to deliver a nuclear warhead, via intercontinental ballistic missile, to selected targets within the United States.
The future of the entire free world would thus be determined by the arms race, the space race, and, ultimately, the moon race
that ensued. And, in the dark days immediately following news of Sputnik, an American win was by no means assured. In
truth, the Soviets had every intention of beating America to the moon, having even chosen their premier Cosmonaut, Alexi
Leonov, to fly the mission.
However, several catastrophic space-hardware failures during the 1960s eventually rendered their chances for success a
virtual impossibility. Meanwhile, America had risen to the occasion, inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s momentous
May 25, 1961, speech in which he challenged the nation to achieve a manned moon landing before the end of the decade.
Apollo 11, derided by the Soviets as technologically insignificant, excessively expensive and indifferent to the suffering of
common citizens (an indictment immediately echoed by America’s Leftists and eventually accepted and carried by the
nation’s Liberal media), was nonetheless the crowning jewel of that challenge.
So, on that twentieth of July thirty nine years ago, America did indeed realize a decisive victory in the Cold War. American
heroism and greatness was on display. Flags were flying then. And they should be flown every July 20, lest we ever forget.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Outer Space: Space Projects & Space Travel
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
The American Nation & Its Common National Culture:
Political Culture, Patriotism, & American National Identity:
The Basic Values, Beliefs, & Traditions Characteristic
of American Society & Its Civic Culture
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer who lives in southeastern Wyoming and works in the field of industrial instrumentation.
He is actively involved in Wyoming's political process, serving as a delegate to successive Wyoming State Republican Conventions
and as a member of the Wyoming State Republican Central Committee. He has assisted Republican candidates for local and state
legislatures and for the United States Congress. His articles, which appear regularly in The Progressive Conservative, U.S.A.,
and on a number of other websites, reflect a major concern with the damage being done to Conservatism and Conservative causes by
the Liberal Leftist faction in the Republican Party as well as by the much larger and more powerful Liberal Leftist faction in the
Democratic Party. During the early and middle 1990s, Adamo was Editor of the Wyoming Christian Coalition's official news organ,
The Wyoming Christian.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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