Bill Posey: “It is a pleasure to be here today to speak about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. I can remember sitting in class with…”

“It is a pleasure to be here today to speak about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. I can remember sitting in class with the teacher discussing President John F. Kennedy's speech about going to the Moon at Rice University in 1961, when he committed this country to putting a man on the Moon and bringing him safely back to Earth within the decade. He said: Great nations do things, not because they are easy, because they are hard. And it certainly was hard. I remember doing the math on my fingers and saying, you know, I am going to be old enough to be involved in that program. And my goal became to have my fingerprints on the rocket that took the first man to the Moon. To make a long story short, 5 years later I was an inspector working on the third stage of the Apollo rocket, one of the highlights of my life. Americans were united in those days in their zeal for space; the Apollo Moon landing being the greatest technological advancement in the history of mankind. Some writers described those times as a Camelot era, where people respected their President, even if they didn't vote for them. Not until 9/11 had I seen Americans as united as they were around the Apollo program. Space, of course, is important to our national security. It is important to our economic prosperity. It is important to our technological advancement.…”