Sputnik put the fear of God (and the Russians) in us when it launched on October 4, 1957. On that day NASA and the space race were born.
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged America to "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth.". On July 20, 1969, this task was accomplished when we landed two men on the moon and returned them and their companion safely to earth in Apollo 11.
How did we do this? In such a short span of years we went from sending a chimp into sub-orbit to having men walk on the moon. How could we accomplish this Herculean feat?
Inspiration and good old American Spunk. We, as a people, rose to the challenge. JFK said: "make it happen" and NASA engineers, the cream of the crop, got the job done.
Today, our Sputnik is the energy crisis and its evil sibling, global warming. Our Herculean task? Developing a source of energy that is plentiful, clean, renewable, and not based on carbon. The big question: who will be our JFK? Who will inspire us to reach the greatness as we did with the space race?
And will we be able to meet that challenge?
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