I was born the same year as NASA & I was a space-nut. I followed the Mercury, Gemini & Apollo programs. I watched launches on a black & white TV. I owned an encyclopedic set "Above & Beyond" & I bought all the international papers on July 20/69 to save them for the future. 1/

I dreamt of being an astronaut but was dismayed when I reached a height of 6’2” by the age of 13 because I understood that astronauts had to stand less than 5’10” to fit in the module & wear the gear. 2/

Not counting all of the work that NACA did prior to NASA, it still took another 29 years before the program put 3 guys on the moon. And it cost a bit of money. In 1966 NASA spent 4.4% of the US Federal Budget. 3/

Walter Cronkite retired in '80 &, if memory serves, he was asked 2 questions, the answers of which stuck.
1) Will you enter politics? WC: No it would be unfair to trade on the trust of the American people for my political gain. [not a quote - just me scraping memory] 4/

2) What was the biggest news event of historical significance during your career? Was it JFK’s assissination? WC: No. Without question I would say landing on the moon. When US historians look back it will be as significant as 1492 & the landing of the Mayflower. 5/

Walter Cronkite passed away in 2009. My Dad was born just a year before him and passed away ten years before him. My Dad was no celebrity but, like Walter Cronkite, he was respectful of people and tried to speak truthfully. 6/

When Cronkite passed, I named our Jotul wood stove with its glass door “Walter” in his honour as I felt the flames through the glass were the last form of “media” in which I would ever again place my trust. My cynicism ran pretty deep in that year. 7/

The space program was watched by the whole world but paraded as a nationalistic battle for the supremacy of space between the US & the rest of the world. They made it out to be a race against the USSR, but the US wanted to be alone on top. Period. 8/

It is the end of 2020 & the global pandemic related to SARS CoV2 has dominated this year like nothing for more than a century. But scientists from all around the world have united in something that I find positively exhilarating. 9/

They developed tests, created models of transmission & replication, came up with treatment protocols and developed vaccines in record time. For those of us using social media we occasionally caught glimpses of real-time exchanges between scientists from a variety of fields. /10

After a convo with someone on twitter - someone I never met but who I now consider a friend - I wondered if Cronkite was alive, would he think this unification of scientists & health professionals against a virus was bigger than Apollo 11. I like to think that he would. 11/11