Destination: History - Historical Events that have Shaped Mankind
Benjamin M. Roine
July 19, 2007
Destination: History
Historical Events that have Shaped Mankind
Throughout the annals of history, there have been a number of singular events that have forever altered the human landscape. Here we explore one such event.
7/20/1969 Neil Armstrong takes one giant leap for mankind
Knowledge of the Night Sky
Many mysterious and highly intelligent cultures of the ancient world had an understanding of the night sky that has yet to be duplicated. One only has to stare into the night sky to understand why our ancestors would have been so intent on studying the mystical bodies that swirl above us. While it is a certainty that the earliest humans and probably hominids were mesmerized by the night sky, (who knows, it could be that this wonder is what triggered the growth of the brain that allows for the current capacity) the best known of these ancient cultures that studied the night sky were the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, and Aztecs. The Maya and Aztec were so meticulous in their study of night sky that the calendars they based on the stars are so accurate that they have required no adjustments (our current calendar system has required multiple adjustments). The Egyptians were able to build an on a monumental scale while building in perfect alignment with celestial bodies. Other ancient cultures that had a profound understanding of the stars were the Incas and Druids of England, who also built mind-boggling structures that aligned with the stars and the sun. Here we have the earliest examples of mankind’s desire to understand the heavenly bodies which reside at distances from Earth that the human mind can barely comprehend.
Advances in Weapons Technology Advance Mankind
How can it be that inventions meant to maim and kill could improve life? War, in all its horror, forces men to do extraordinary things. In an effort to inflict damage on one’s enemy or protect one’s allies, the human brain is pushed to its creative limits. The first tools of death were created by the Neanderthals and the earliest humans. However, these tools were not likely for war with other hominids, but rather war for survival in an unforgiving world (Chimpanzees use tools to collect ants & termites).
Stone Age
Around 50,000 years ago, as humans spread from Ethiopia, adaptations were required to survive in different environments. Anthropologists believe that it is around this time that humans developed language. They also brought with them the knowledge that when two particular types of stone were struck together they would create sparks (evidence shows humans have been using stone tools for 150,000 years) and therefore could be used for creating fire. The combination of developing language and the need to adapt spurred brain growth, and eventually these stones were fashioned into sharp points that would pierce the flesh and kill animals that provided sustenance for a hunter’s tribes, thus propagating life. These stone tools were also used to skin animal hides for clothes and shelter, grind grains for cooking, and build other stone tools. Soon these stone tools were attached to wooden sticks for improved distance and accuracy. With the invention of the bow and arrow came rudimentary physics. Not to say that our earliest ancestors understood their invention in mathematical terms, but more likely saw that their invention performed a vital task more efficiently than their physical limits allowed.
The earliest human ancestors and humans were comprised of small hunter gatherer, nomadic, tribes that followed herds and collected what plants they knew to be edible. As Darwin’s famous ‘survival of the fittest’ axiom goes; the smartest men would be the best tool makers, the best tool makers would make the best hunters, the best hunters would procure the most food, and the hunters with the most food could support the most progeny. Therefore the DNA of the smartest men and women would be passed on more with more frequency, making humans smarter by the generation.
Ten to twelve-thousand years ago humans in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia saw that by cultivating the seeds of the grains and plants they ate and by domesticating the animals they hunted, they could become sedentary and make their lives easier. As humans’ minds were free to think of things other than survival, intellectual thinking moved to improving life and inventions of this sort were created precipitously. Soon, improvements were made to practical, everyday wares, such as clay pots for cooking and storing food stuffs. The arts also began to flourish in an attempt by people to express themselves and recreate the beauty of the world that surrounded them. These artistic expressions had been previously drawn on cave walls using rudimentary paints and ash, but with settlements the art became more refined. From some of these earliest settlements, archeologists have found sculptures, jewelry made from precious stones, and decorative weapons.
However, with civilization came material possessions and the need to protect these possessions. Thus it was that people became more distrustful of each other and other settlements that may wish to abscond with their goods and inflict harm upon them. The good life that civilization provided also brought the idea of ownership and jealousy, and with these came the greater need for protection.
Bronze Age
Around 3500 BC, peoples in current day Turkey began to mine and copper and tin, and through the art of metallurgy they were able to make a much more durable and valuable metal: bronze. Through expanded trade and exchange of ideas, bronze and the knowledge of how to make the precious metal spread from Europe to eastern Asia. This gave birth to the ‘Bronze Age’, an age in which sedentary villages started to become metropolises.
People who lived in metropolises became more specialized in their trade and needed a market place where they may purchase food, clothes, household needs and other imported niceties. For a market place to thrive, it needs order, which requires leaders who impose laws, which requires language for communication and the dissemination of laws, which requires written words so that the populous may understand them. One of the earliest examples of this was Hammurabi’s Code. Hammurabi was the king of the city-state, Babylon, who is responsible for one of the earliest known written codes of law, written in one of the oldest known written languages, Cuneiform. Throughout time, while some groups were egalitarian, most tribes had chiefs or heads of a different name to lead the tribe through good and tough times, but his rule was absolute and typically unquestionable. With the rise of civilization came the rise of rulers who would rule over mass populations, creating men with more power than had been seen before.
Perhaps the best example of this power was the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza, built as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu, completed around 2560 BC. At the time the Great Pyramid was mankind’s greatest accomplishment. The builders constructed the Great Pyramid to be in exact alignment with the stars, which required many decades of mathematical and astronomical study, so exact that our current technology cannot match the degree of perfection. Build over twenty years and without the assistance of cranes or any technology we see in construction today, the Great Pyramid still stands today as a testament to man’s ingenuity. Ancient Egypt was the most advanced culture of the time and the metallurgy, architecture, and artistic achievements of the Egyptians still inspire awe and wonder. However, Egypt was also a rich and powerful nation with enemies and the need to protect the general population. Conversely Egypt’s enemies needed to protect their interests from Egyptian incursions.
The rulers of the ancient Middle East needed to protect their cities and populations, and for this they needed to raise and arm armies. For these armies the rulers would hire artisans to create well made and even new types of weapons and armor. These artisans would then make improvements to existing technology and even discovered how to use new and harder metals, such as iron.
Iron Age
Iron is one of the most abundant elements in the universe, but due to its high tolerance to heat, it took man many centuries to sustain the heat needed to melt and then forge it into weapons and armor. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that by combining carbon to iron, one could make a stronger, more malleable and durable alloy called steel. The ability to mass produce steel would assist the spread the Hellenistic Culture from Greece throughout the Middle East to Western India when Alexander the Greats’ armies rapidly spread east. Steel, military discipline and tactics aided the Romans in their conquest of the Mediterranean.
During the Middle Ages, Europeans began to look to the sea and wonder, ‘What else is out there?’ While there is strong evidence that it was the Vikings that were the first in the ‘New World’, it is Christopher Columbus who is credited with ‘discovering’ (Humans already lived there, so it is tough to discover what has already been found) the Western Hemisphere. It was the thirst for knowledge or what outside their known world that inspired explorers to leave the comfort of home.
Gunpowder
Discovered by Chinese alchemists,
In the history of science, alchemy (Arabic: ÇáÎíãíÇÁ, al-khimia) refers to both an early form of the investigation of nature and an early philosophical and spiritual discipline, both combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art all as parts of one greater force. Alchemy has been practiced in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China, in Classical Greece and Rome, in the Muslim civilization, and then in Europe up to the 19th century—in a complex network of schools and philosophical systems spanning at least 2500 years.] Deffinition from Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy
Gunpowder forever changed the human landscape. In a cruel twist of fate, gunpowder was the product of a failed attempt to create an immortality elixir. Gunpowder heralded in the age of guns, an age of which we will doubtfully be freed of and death on a scale without parallel.
Nuclear Age
World War II brought death and destruction on a level the Earth had never seen before. American scientists saw first hand the power contained in a single atom, when they split the atom (nuclear fission) and witnessed the destructive power of atomic weapons. The Russians detonated their first atomic weapon in 1949, giving birth to the Cold War’s nuclear race. However, a few of the weapons and weapons systems that were designed to inflict damage would be used to further the human race and improve life. The German development of rocket engines was the culmination of all the advances of mankind and would be, literally, the driving force behind the space race and the race to answer the questions of the cosmos.
Space Race
Before the space race, there was the race for German scientists. After the fall of the Nazi regime, the Soviet Union seeing that the US had mastered nuclear science and had detonated multiple nuclear weapons, saw the need to bring some of the German nuclear and rocket scientist into their labs, so that they might catch up with America. Having already split the atom, the US government wanted these Germans to teach American scientists rocket science.
Nearing the end of the War, the German scientists had begun to prefect their rocket engines. Their rocket-powered fighter jet, the Messerschmitt-Comet, was the first of its type and therefore the fastest and most maneuverable plane of WWII. This knowledge of rocket science also led to the creation of the V2, a liquid-fueled ballistic missile. The head of the research team that developed the rocket was a man named Wernher von Braun, who was whisked away to America after the War where he would work on the American Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (or ICBM) program before joining NASA.
The Soviet Union would win the first round of the race when on October 4, 1957; they launched Sputnik I into orbit, which resulted in President Eisenhower’s creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or NASA). On December 18, 1958, a US Air Force Atlas Rocket launched the world’s first communications satellite in space, which played a Christmas message from President Eisenhower.
The race continued with both nations launching animals into space. The USSR was first to send an animal into space when they sent a dog named Barker, into orbit aboard Sputnik II, while the US sent Chimpanzees. After numerous tragedies and losses of both Soviet and American pioneers, the Soviets won the next leg of the race when on April 12, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin hurtled into space aboard the Soviet Vostok I rocket. Less than a year later the US would send Astronaut John Glenn into orbit on February 20, 1962, aboard Friendship 7.
Next Stop; THE MOON
After the losing the race to be the first to put a man into orbit, President Kennedy promised the nation the moon, thus the Apollo project was born. After much deliberations and calculations, NASA engineers working on the Apollo program came to the decision to use a three-part system called the Lunar Orbiter Rendezvous (or LOR) to send astronauts to the moon. This meant that there would be the rocket, Saturn V, and Lunar Module (to land on the moon), and a Lunar Orbiter.
NASA launched multiple test missions. On December 12, 1968, Apollo 8, with a crew of three men, was launched with the goal of orbiting the moon. Apollo missions 9 and 10 were also test missions, but unlike 8 had the Lunar Module. On July 16, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong, Module Pilot, Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins were launched into space from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. After four days, the Lunar Module, called the Eagle, separated from the Command Module and began its decent toward the lunar surface. After a suspense-filled and daring landing (off target), Armstrong reported to Mission Control in Houston, TX, “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” Six-and-a-half hours after landing, with a reported 700 million viewers, Neil Armstrong descended from the Eagle, planted his foot on the surface of the moon and said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Perhaps one of the best known and prophetic lines in history, he accurately described the success as a success for all of mankind, not just America. This was an event that all of humanity could rejoice in, for it was the most perfect example of mankind’s courage, honor, intelligence, and will power.
Effects
NASA sent seven more missions to the moon, six of which resulted in successful landings (Apollo 13 had a small explosion and the landing was aborted), the last being Apollo 17 in 1972. Beyond the subsequent missions to the moon, the success of the Apollo 11 landing gave Americans the confidence in NASA to continue to publicly support the agency, which endowed NASA with the money to begin to build and send satellites to distance planets and other celestial bodies. NASA’s most recent success has been the Mars Rovers, who have been operating long past their due dates and have increased our knowledge of the Red Planet exponentially.
It is this thirst for knowledge that continues our quest to explore other worlds. Perhaps the most tantalizing object in our solar system is one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa. Europa is covered by miles of thick water ice with a liquid ocean beneath the ice. Considering water is one of the elemental building blocks of life here on Earth that means Europa has one of the essential building blocks for life. If we then look at how life thrives in the most extreme conditions here on Earth, then we must admit that life is more durable and probable than we had previously imagined. Most life on Earth uses the sun in one way or another (food chain i.e. we eat plants, plants need sunlight for photosynthesis), but if Europa is covered by miles of ice, then no sunlight could possibly make it to the liquid ocean right? Here on Earth a great percentage of the biomass lives without sunlight. These organisms live miles below the surface of the ocean, where no sunlight reaches, but yet life thrives. Life thrives at the bottom of ocean by a process called chemosynthesis, in which the organisms on the bottom of the food chain create their own food by turning chemicals emitted from the Earth’s geothermal vents into consumable sugars. In fact this region may have been the birth of life here on Earth. Jupiter’s gravitational pull on Europa is very strong, causing stress on the moon which means that, similar to the Earth, it has a liquid mantle. A liquid mantle, again similar to Earth, could seep out of geothermal vents in the moon’s crust and provide a sustainable food source for any organism that may be there.
Conclusion
We humans continue to evolve and work to make our lives better. Our minds are wonderful things, that when applied to a particular problem or obstacle can discover, reveal, and accomplish what was previously thought impossible. With that in mind, we should celebrate our scientists’ accomplishments and support future endeavors in their respective fields.
While I do not claim to know all the facts of this event, it is my goal to elicit critical thought of historical events and their effects on mankind
Historical Events that have Shaped Mankind
Throughout the annals of history, there have been a number of singular events that have forever altered the human landscape. Here we explore one such event.
7/20/1969 Neil Armstrong takes one giant leap for mankind
Knowledge of the Night Sky
Many mysterious and highly intelligent cultures of the ancient world had an understanding of the night sky that has yet to be duplicated. One only has to stare into the night sky to understand why our ancestors would have been so intent on studying the mystical bodies that swirl above us. While it is a certainty that the earliest humans and probably hominids were mesmerized by the night sky, (who knows, it could be that this wonder is what triggered the growth of the brain that allows for the current capacity) the best known of these ancient cultures that studied the night sky were the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, and Aztecs. The Maya and Aztec were so meticulous in their study of night sky that the calendars they based on the stars are so accurate that they have required no adjustments (our current calendar system has required multiple adjustments). The Egyptians were able to build an on a monumental scale while building in perfect alignment with celestial bodies. Other ancient cultures that had a profound understanding of the stars were the Incas and Druids of England, who also built mind-boggling structures that aligned with the stars and the sun. Here we have the earliest examples of mankind’s desire to understand the heavenly bodies which reside at distances from Earth that the human mind can barely comprehend.
Advances in Weapons Technology Advance Mankind
How can it be that inventions meant to maim and kill could improve life? War, in all its horror, forces men to do extraordinary things. In an effort to inflict damage on one’s enemy or protect one’s allies, the human brain is pushed to its creative limits. The first tools of death were created by the Neanderthals and the earliest humans. However, these tools were not likely for war with other hominids, but rather war for survival in an unforgiving world (Chimpanzees use tools to collect ants & termites).
Stone Age
Around 50,000 years ago, as humans spread from Ethiopia, adaptations were required to survive in different environments. Anthropologists believe that it is around this time that humans developed language. They also brought with them the knowledge that when two particular types of stone were struck together they would create sparks (evidence shows humans have been using stone tools for 150,000 years) and therefore could be used for creating fire. The combination of developing language and the need to adapt spurred brain growth, and eventually these stones were fashioned into sharp points that would pierce the flesh and kill animals that provided sustenance for a hunter’s tribes, thus propagating life. These stone tools were also used to skin animal hides for clothes and shelter, grind grains for cooking, and build other stone tools. Soon these stone tools were attached to wooden sticks for improved distance and accuracy. With the invention of the bow and arrow came rudimentary physics. Not to say that our earliest ancestors understood their invention in mathematical terms, but more likely saw that their invention performed a vital task more efficiently than their physical limits allowed.
The earliest human ancestors and humans were comprised of small hunter gatherer, nomadic, tribes that followed herds and collected what plants they knew to be edible. As Darwin’s famous ‘survival of the fittest’ axiom goes; the smartest men would be the best tool makers, the best tool makers would make the best hunters, the best hunters would procure the most food, and the hunters with the most food could support the most progeny. Therefore the DNA of the smartest men and women would be passed on more with more frequency, making humans smarter by the generation.
Ten to twelve-thousand years ago humans in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia saw that by cultivating the seeds of the grains and plants they ate and by domesticating the animals they hunted, they could become sedentary and make their lives easier. As humans’ minds were free to think of things other than survival, intellectual thinking moved to improving life and inventions of this sort were created precipitously. Soon, improvements were made to practical, everyday wares, such as clay pots for cooking and storing food stuffs. The arts also began to flourish in an attempt by people to express themselves and recreate the beauty of the world that surrounded them. These artistic expressions had been previously drawn on cave walls using rudimentary paints and ash, but with settlements the art became more refined. From some of these earliest settlements, archeologists have found sculptures, jewelry made from precious stones, and decorative weapons.
However, with civilization came material possessions and the need to protect these possessions. Thus it was that people became more distrustful of each other and other settlements that may wish to abscond with their goods and inflict harm upon them. The good life that civilization provided also brought the idea of ownership and jealousy, and with these came the greater need for protection.
Bronze Age
Around 3500 BC, peoples in current day Turkey began to mine and copper and tin, and through the art of metallurgy they were able to make a much more durable and valuable metal: bronze. Through expanded trade and exchange of ideas, bronze and the knowledge of how to make the precious metal spread from Europe to eastern Asia. This gave birth to the ‘Bronze Age’, an age in which sedentary villages started to become metropolises.
People who lived in metropolises became more specialized in their trade and needed a market place where they may purchase food, clothes, household needs and other imported niceties. For a market place to thrive, it needs order, which requires leaders who impose laws, which requires language for communication and the dissemination of laws, which requires written words so that the populous may understand them. One of the earliest examples of this was Hammurabi’s Code. Hammurabi was the king of the city-state, Babylon, who is responsible for one of the earliest known written codes of law, written in one of the oldest known written languages, Cuneiform. Throughout time, while some groups were egalitarian, most tribes had chiefs or heads of a different name to lead the tribe through good and tough times, but his rule was absolute and typically unquestionable. With the rise of civilization came the rise of rulers who would rule over mass populations, creating men with more power than had been seen before.
Perhaps the best example of this power was the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza, built as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu, completed around 2560 BC. At the time the Great Pyramid was mankind’s greatest accomplishment. The builders constructed the Great Pyramid to be in exact alignment with the stars, which required many decades of mathematical and astronomical study, so exact that our current technology cannot match the degree of perfection. Build over twenty years and without the assistance of cranes or any technology we see in construction today, the Great Pyramid still stands today as a testament to man’s ingenuity. Ancient Egypt was the most advanced culture of the time and the metallurgy, architecture, and artistic achievements of the Egyptians still inspire awe and wonder. However, Egypt was also a rich and powerful nation with enemies and the need to protect the general population. Conversely Egypt’s enemies needed to protect their interests from Egyptian incursions.
The rulers of the ancient Middle East needed to protect their cities and populations, and for this they needed to raise and arm armies. For these armies the rulers would hire artisans to create well made and even new types of weapons and armor. These artisans would then make improvements to existing technology and even discovered how to use new and harder metals, such as iron.
Iron Age
Iron is one of the most abundant elements in the universe, but due to its high tolerance to heat, it took man many centuries to sustain the heat needed to melt and then forge it into weapons and armor. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that by combining carbon to iron, one could make a stronger, more malleable and durable alloy called steel. The ability to mass produce steel would assist the spread the Hellenistic Culture from Greece throughout the Middle East to Western India when Alexander the Greats’ armies rapidly spread east. Steel, military discipline and tactics aided the Romans in their conquest of the Mediterranean.
During the Middle Ages, Europeans began to look to the sea and wonder, ‘What else is out there?’ While there is strong evidence that it was the Vikings that were the first in the ‘New World’, it is Christopher Columbus who is credited with ‘discovering’ (Humans already lived there, so it is tough to discover what has already been found) the Western Hemisphere. It was the thirst for knowledge or what outside their known world that inspired explorers to leave the comfort of home.
Gunpowder
Discovered by Chinese alchemists,
In the history of science, alchemy (Arabic: ÇáÎíãíÇÁ, al-khimia) refers to both an early form of the investigation of nature and an early philosophical and spiritual discipline, both combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art all as parts of one greater force. Alchemy has been practiced in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China, in Classical Greece and Rome, in the Muslim civilization, and then in Europe up to the 19th century—in a complex network of schools and philosophical systems spanning at least 2500 years.] Deffinition from Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy
Gunpowder forever changed the human landscape. In a cruel twist of fate, gunpowder was the product of a failed attempt to create an immortality elixir. Gunpowder heralded in the age of guns, an age of which we will doubtfully be freed of and death on a scale without parallel.
Nuclear Age
World War II brought death and destruction on a level the Earth had never seen before. American scientists saw first hand the power contained in a single atom, when they split the atom (nuclear fission) and witnessed the destructive power of atomic weapons. The Russians detonated their first atomic weapon in 1949, giving birth to the Cold War’s nuclear race. However, a few of the weapons and weapons systems that were designed to inflict damage would be used to further the human race and improve life. The German development of rocket engines was the culmination of all the advances of mankind and would be, literally, the driving force behind the space race and the race to answer the questions of the cosmos.
Space Race
Before the space race, there was the race for German scientists. After the fall of the Nazi regime, the Soviet Union seeing that the US had mastered nuclear science and had detonated multiple nuclear weapons, saw the need to bring some of the German nuclear and rocket scientist into their labs, so that they might catch up with America. Having already split the atom, the US government wanted these Germans to teach American scientists rocket science.
Nearing the end of the War, the German scientists had begun to prefect their rocket engines. Their rocket-powered fighter jet, the Messerschmitt-Comet, was the first of its type and therefore the fastest and most maneuverable plane of WWII. This knowledge of rocket science also led to the creation of the V2, a liquid-fueled ballistic missile. The head of the research team that developed the rocket was a man named Wernher von Braun, who was whisked away to America after the War where he would work on the American Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (or ICBM) program before joining NASA.
The Soviet Union would win the first round of the race when on October 4, 1957; they launched Sputnik I into orbit, which resulted in President Eisenhower’s creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or NASA). On December 18, 1958, a US Air Force Atlas Rocket launched the world’s first communications satellite in space, which played a Christmas message from President Eisenhower.
The race continued with both nations launching animals into space. The USSR was first to send an animal into space when they sent a dog named Barker, into orbit aboard Sputnik II, while the US sent Chimpanzees. After numerous tragedies and losses of both Soviet and American pioneers, the Soviets won the next leg of the race when on April 12, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin hurtled into space aboard the Soviet Vostok I rocket. Less than a year later the US would send Astronaut John Glenn into orbit on February 20, 1962, aboard Friendship 7.
Next Stop; THE MOON
After the losing the race to be the first to put a man into orbit, President Kennedy promised the nation the moon, thus the Apollo project was born. After much deliberations and calculations, NASA engineers working on the Apollo program came to the decision to use a three-part system called the Lunar Orbiter Rendezvous (or LOR) to send astronauts to the moon. This meant that there would be the rocket, Saturn V, and Lunar Module (to land on the moon), and a Lunar Orbiter.
NASA launched multiple test missions. On December 12, 1968, Apollo 8, with a crew of three men, was launched with the goal of orbiting the moon. Apollo missions 9 and 10 were also test missions, but unlike 8 had the Lunar Module. On July 16, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong, Module Pilot, Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins were launched into space from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. After four days, the Lunar Module, called the Eagle, separated from the Command Module and began its decent toward the lunar surface. After a suspense-filled and daring landing (off target), Armstrong reported to Mission Control in Houston, TX, “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” Six-and-a-half hours after landing, with a reported 700 million viewers, Neil Armstrong descended from the Eagle, planted his foot on the surface of the moon and said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Perhaps one of the best known and prophetic lines in history, he accurately described the success as a success for all of mankind, not just America. This was an event that all of humanity could rejoice in, for it was the most perfect example of mankind’s courage, honor, intelligence, and will power.
Effects
NASA sent seven more missions to the moon, six of which resulted in successful landings (Apollo 13 had a small explosion and the landing was aborted), the last being Apollo 17 in 1972. Beyond the subsequent missions to the moon, the success of the Apollo 11 landing gave Americans the confidence in NASA to continue to publicly support the agency, which endowed NASA with the money to begin to build and send satellites to distance planets and other celestial bodies. NASA’s most recent success has been the Mars Rovers, who have been operating long past their due dates and have increased our knowledge of the Red Planet exponentially.
It is this thirst for knowledge that continues our quest to explore other worlds. Perhaps the most tantalizing object in our solar system is one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa. Europa is covered by miles of thick water ice with a liquid ocean beneath the ice. Considering water is one of the elemental building blocks of life here on Earth that means Europa has one of the essential building blocks for life. If we then look at how life thrives in the most extreme conditions here on Earth, then we must admit that life is more durable and probable than we had previously imagined. Most life on Earth uses the sun in one way or another (food chain i.e. we eat plants, plants need sunlight for photosynthesis), but if Europa is covered by miles of ice, then no sunlight could possibly make it to the liquid ocean right? Here on Earth a great percentage of the biomass lives without sunlight. These organisms live miles below the surface of the ocean, where no sunlight reaches, but yet life thrives. Life thrives at the bottom of ocean by a process called chemosynthesis, in which the organisms on the bottom of the food chain create their own food by turning chemicals emitted from the Earth’s geothermal vents into consumable sugars. In fact this region may have been the birth of life here on Earth. Jupiter’s gravitational pull on Europa is very strong, causing stress on the moon which means that, similar to the Earth, it has a liquid mantle. A liquid mantle, again similar to Earth, could seep out of geothermal vents in the moon’s crust and provide a sustainable food source for any organism that may be there.
Conclusion
We humans continue to evolve and work to make our lives better. Our minds are wonderful things, that when applied to a particular problem or obstacle can discover, reveal, and accomplish what was previously thought impossible. With that in mind, we should celebrate our scientists’ accomplishments and support future endeavors in their respective fields.
While I do not claim to know all the facts of this event, it is my goal to elicit critical thought of historical events and their effects on mankind
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