[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 27, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     AMERICA NEEDS TO REGAIN VISION IT TOOK TO ACHIEVE MOON LANDING

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 27, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member commends to his colleagues an 
editorial which appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on July 19, 1994.

              [From the Omaha World-Herald, July 19, 1994]

     America Needs to Regain Vision It Took to Achieve Moon Landing

       For many Americans, the memories are sharp, inked in black 
     and white like the pictures on the front pages of newspapers 
     across the country.
       Neil Armstrong, fresh-scrubbed farm boy from Ohio, Ungainly 
     in a pillowy white space suit, step-hopping down onto the 
     surface of some place that was not the Earth. Dust 
     fountaining up from his boot in slow motion. Footprints on a 
     world where no foot had ever set down before.
       Twenty-five years has passed since that moment. Twenty-five 
     years since Apollo 11, years full of significant events--
     wars, death, births, changes for the better, changes for the 
     worse.
       When Astronauts Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins 
     were strapped into their small space capsule atop an enormous 
     Saturn rocket, they flew more than the first mission to the 
     moon.
       The technological wizardry that boosted them so high, so 
     fast was staggering. The Soviet Union had launched Sputnik, 
     the first orbital satellite, hardly more than 10 years 
     before. The United States played catch-up for only a short 
     while. Then it began leading--to the moon.
       With the launch, July 16, 1969, went the prayers and hopes 
     of millions of Americans. The mission unified the nation at a 
     time of dissension. People were awestruck at the feat. 
     Everyone wanted it to succeed.
       And it did. Armstrong bounced down on the moon's surface. 
     Aldrin followed. They cavorted playfully in the moon's 
     lighter gravity. They planted a rigid U.S. flag where no 
     breeze would ever blow. They gathered moon rocks. They came 
     back to their home planet, Earth, as the first men who had 
     touched another world.
       How audacious it was, that journey. How magnificently bold. 
     For millions of years, the moon had hung in the heavens, 
     waxing and waning with the days. Airless, waterless, a place 
     of love songs and dreams.
       And aspirations. Just as, not a decade before, Ohioan John 
     Glenn's first orbit of the Earth inspired a generation, so 
     did Armstrong's ``small step for (a) man.'' But where has his 
     ``giant leap for mankind'' taken the nation?
       Where, indeed. Sadly, it seems that the vision that gripped 
     the United States in those days has been mislaid. Apollo 11 
     encouraged Americans to look at the future, and anticipating 
     that future made them proud.
       Where are the Apollo projects of today? Visions of the 
     moon, Mars and beyond have been replaced by . . . what? The 
     space shuttle program, while scientifically fascinating, does 
     not inspire wonderment. The orbiting space station, thought 
     by many to be the next step after lunar exploration and the 
     first real step toward Mars, has been delayed and diminished 
     to virtual insignificance.
       For the nation, there is no grandeur. There is no sense 
     that the human mind will have to stretch to encompass the 
     future. There is no vision left.
       It could return, though. A rededication to the space 
     effort, an expansion of NASA's goals, could get it rolling.
       It would take national leadership committed to the future, 
     as was President John F. Kennedy during his three years in 
     office. It would take national will, as was required to 
     maintain a moon-landing program while simultaneously waging a 
     war in Southeast Asia.
       And it would take vision that isn't mired in the mundane, 
     something that the Clinton administration hasn't yet 
     displayed.
       The United States is the only country capable of doing it. 
     It should be done.

                          ____________________