Many people put moon in reach

I watched with great pride the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Appropriately, the recognition and credit goes to NASA, the thousands of committed personnel of the Apollo program and the amazing astronauts who supported the program’s goals and objectives.

Neil Armstrong’s historic statement, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” acknowledges the millions of small steps taken by thousands of people who, with their commitment and professional expertise, contributed to the Apollo program with the cutting-edge technological advances developed in the Mercury and Gemini programs.

I knew some of those thousands, because I was one of the rocket scientists at Mission Control who was responsible for the GeminiTitan booster during flight on all the manned missions. May history make note of the fact that every step taken was supported by millions of grains of moon dust, just like the number of those project personnel who preceded that boot impression. To those who shared in supporting that footprint, thank you.