For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

A Brave New World (16.07.09)

Take note of the time and date of this post, for it was exactly 40 years ago that three men lifted off on top of the most powerful rocket ever constructed.

After 12 years work by the Americans, that cost $25 billion ($250 billion at today’s prices), amounting to 5 per cent of America’s gross domestic product, and it must be said a few lives, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins headed for the moon.

Scarcely believable now, but five days later 600 million people, an incredible one-fifth of the global population at the time, watched the subsequent moon walk on television.

It would not be unreasonable to question why this is featured on CabbieBlog. Well, I tell you this, in 1969 with a contentious major war in Asia slowly being lost by America, Apollo 11 gave the world hope in the human spirit of endeavour, and for once, just once, humanity rose above the petty squabbles seemingly to have beset us all. It’s just a pity we didn’t have a new uniting spirit.

I will finish this post with a quote from Bill Anders, astronaut Apollo 8:

“We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”