Kevin Cramer: “as we celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission this week, I rise to pay tribute to the achievements of…”

“as we celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission this week, I rise to pay tribute to the achievements of the past, and to urge my colleagues to set our sights on the potential of the future. The historic steps taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 35 years ago will be remembered by future generations as one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th Century. While these steps were taken on another world, they were born right here on Earth. That was an exciting time in my district in North Alabama, which is the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and the von Braun rocket team. Wernher von Braun, Marshall's first Director, led the development of the roadmap for putting humans on the Moon. Through bold thinking, ingenious engineering, and a lot of good old-fashioned hard work, NASA's engineers and scientists built the colossal Saturn V--a rocket powerful enough to take our astronauts out of the tight grasps of Earth's gravity. Apollo 11 established the U.S. as the world's leader in space and boosted our economy with technology and innovation. But the most important benefit realized from the Apollo 11 moon landing may have been the effect it had on the children of that era--it inspired them-- us--to dream--to reach for the starts. Like generations before, those who come after us have an inherent desire to explore the unknown.”