A landmark anniversary in American history blew by us Monday. It marked an event that seems as if it just happened, but also seems so very long ago.
Fifty years ago, a Marine Corps test pilot sat atop an Atlas rocket and blasted into space. John Glenn’s Friendship 7 Mercury capsule made three orbits around the planet before splashing into the Atlantic Ocean.
A new era in space adventure had begun. Glenn was the first American to be launched into orbital space flight; he was the third American to fly into space, after astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom made suborbital flights in 1961.
The nation had been beaten into space and we commenced a race to the moon that we eventually won.
We had a sense of purpose then that has dissipated over time. Glenn epitomized that intrepid spirit. Indeed, his Feb. 20, 1962 launch had been postponed 10 times by various technical glitches and inclement weather.
But Glenn and the engineers supporting him kept returning to the launch pad.
This nation was founded by individuals born to explore, to reach beyond their grasp. The Soviet Union challenged us by beating us into space, stirring a young president, John F. Kennedy, to make it our national mission to beat the Soviets to the moon.
The Texas Panhandle played its part in manned space flight in the years since that historic launch a half-century ago.
Alan Bean was born in Wheeler and walked on the moon’s surface in November 1969 as a member of the Apollo 12 mission; shuttle astronauts Paul Lockhart and Rick Husband called Amarillo home. Husband, of course, died in that horrifying Feb. 1, 2003, end-of-mission disintegration of the shuttle Columbia — teaching us all that space flight never will become a “routine” event.
Americans were still enthralled with the idea of space flight in February 1962. Our nation had been challenged by our chief international rival, the Soviet Union.
We’ve lost the sense of challenge since that time. Our manned space mission has expired, leaving us with vague references to the future of America’s once-vaunted manned program.
We’re left these days to remember a long-ago event that filled us with pride — not just in a man, but in an idea.