Firsts
On December 17, 1903--116 years ago-- Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above the wind-swept beach at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.
On December 21, 1968—just 65 years later, The Apollo 8 spacecraft orbiting the earth, restarted its Saturn V third stage engine for Trans Lunar Injection—TLI--and set sail for the moon. The first manned spacecraft to leave the confines of earth to travel to another heavenly body.
In 1903, the Wright Brothers had just demonstrated the first powered aircraft flight which would, over the next few decades, make air travel practical, economical and safe. Today at any given moment there are thousands of aircraft in the air carrying over a million passengers to various destinations.
Even though it has been 50 years since Apollo 8 flew to the moon, we have yet to realize the potential for space flight. But it is coming. As surely as we made air travel commonplace, one day space flight will also be common. We will push the environment that humans occupy from earth outward to the solar system and eventually to the stars.