The 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has just passed and many social media sites have been posting photos and celebratory material. NASA has released previously unseen photos and also 'cleaned up' quite a few old ones using AI technologies.

Surely, this landing was one of the seminal events of the 20th century. Surely it was one one of those bright spots amongst so many disasters before and after. Even if we discount the two world wars, the sixties alone were a time of change and chaos.

Apollo 11 and all the folks who made it possible deserve that rare place in human history where it can reasonably be said that human beings are a special group in the animal kingdom. Or at least, they have some claim to be special, notwithstanding all the downsides.

As a fifth grader I watched  the grainy black and white images in the classroom and wondered at the sheer marvel of it. Only a six months later I was deep in conversation with friends about how Apollo 13 might get home safely. We did rotations of the playground turning over everything we had heard for possible clues. What a time!

Space is a super-deadly place and it will try to kill you if it can. The brave men on these missions were always at the edge of disaster, one small step from oblivion. Their achievement is simply massive, no matter how you measure it.