That's One Small Step
For a man....
A calendar marks fifty years
since an audacious mission,
a rare moment of global unity,
a leap forward.
But there is no leap, no grand
accomplishment without small steps.
Before female computers
slide rule math was machined
into mechanical gears,
then encoded in ones and zeroes,
first in cards and vacuum tubes, then transistors,
now microchips and nanobots.
Before Saturn rolled out,
behemoth pointing to the heavens,
Gemini made numerous flights, orbiting
our pale blue dot.
Before Gemini, Mercury reached
tentatively into space.
From the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk
to Goddard's experiments, each step
expanded our knowledge and horizons, allowing
Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to strap in
to the world's most powerful rocket.
Accelerating to seventeen thousand
miles per hour to park above
earth
before translunar injection,
navigating two hundred thirty nine thousand
miles through black void, men of Apollo
took a giant leap forward
with one more step.
Engineers turned theory into rockets.
Test pilots turned astronauts flew
them - and us - to the moon.
And we take planes to the edge,
pushing boundaries, until
we turn the calendar
one day and marvel
at a new world, far
from that first
small
step.
- A tribute to the astronauts, scientists, engineers and workers who expanded our horizon in 1969; written for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The "we" in the poem refers to pilots who compete in the International Aerobatic Club (IAC) as well as IMAC, the International Miniature Aerobatic Club. Published in the IMAC newsletter, Vol. VII, 2019.
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