Today is the 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon. No doubt, this is one of the most significant events in the history of man…man’s first step on another heavenly body. I am proud to have worked as an engineer on this project.
Yet, while most people celebrate this anniversary, some people find time to complain about it. Some “feminists” complain about “3 white man” flying to the moon, and teams of “white men” designing and building the spacecraft… a “mysogenic” event, as they said.
Well, ladies, I have news for you…most "white men" would not have been able to become astronauts at that time, no matter how much they wanted to. The 9 original astronauts were highly experienced pilots of the Navy and the Airforce, some of them test pilots.(the of the best) . Female test pilots did not exist…. Had there been any, they might have made the cut and might have been included. Of course, in later years, there were female astronauts.
And as far as “white men” designing the hardware… this is actually not quite correct. I do remember female engineers, and some of them not Caucasian… but not many.
And why not many? Because engineering colleges produced mostly male engineers…. why?...not because females were not admitted, but because females were not interested… they preferred other professions.
So, ladies, blame yourself if you feel under-represented in any such enterprise… it has nothing to do with male chauvinism.
As Mcfarm would say, Amen and Amen.
Probably the greatest accomplishment of this, or any other country. I hope someday we can top it, but I have my doubts.
I was a young teen that day, and I remember being so impressed with Mr Armstrong's first words, " One small step for man... " I thought, what an amazing thing to come up with on the spur of the moment. I later realized the phrase had likely been scripted for months, if not years in advance... Not that it takes anything away from the moment...
I remember a soldier in Viet Nam being interviewed. He said it finally struck him as how amazing it was when he could not convince a native that we had landed on the moon. The guy thought he must be joking.
Armstrong said he "messed up" an left out "a" from his famous pronouncement. Which would have made it make more sense. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." https://tinyurl.com/yyjuq373
Yeah, I get that. But I think if I were the first man setting foot on the moon, I'd be lucky to remember how to walk :-)