When the astronauts of the Apollo space program, and earlier programs like Mercury, blasted off at dawn a large part of America woke up to view the event. We mostly had black and white television sets and the TV cameras only depicted the first 30 seconds or so. The rest was up to our imaginations.
By the time of the Shuttle in the 1980s space flight had become commonplace. It took the Challenger blowing up in 1986 to get us to tune back in, but even that was just to stare at the tragedy. Our capacity for wonder had long since been used and been replaced with a complacency as to what we were trying to learn and accomplish through space travel.
Fifty years after men landed on the Moon plans are being made to return and build a space station to orbit the Moon. Plans are also being madeby NASA to develop rockets for more extensive space exploration.
Many countries now have space programs and are set on learning for themselves what they can about what happens when one leaves the Earth's atmosphere. Now doubt televisions in America will show people in countries like India and China waking up early to watch with the same wonder in their eyes that our's once held. It will be every bit as dramatic to them as it was fifty years ago to us.
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