25th Anniversary of Moon Landing

As I write this, it’s been 25 years to the day since the first man set foot on the moon. Sadly, the U.S. space program has taken a “giant leap” backward since that historic occasion. Even now, Congress is still trying to slash NASA’s budget and cancel the Space Station entirely, to the point where NASA, as your editorial noted (July 20), is left wondering whether Congress and the President really want a space program at all.

Where is all that money we supposedly saved by cutting back the defense budget drastically at the end of the Cold War? Why couldn’t some of that money be used to advance the space program and keep some aerospace workers employed?

The knowledge we have gained from the space program is invaluable, going far beyond the bounds of space exploration itself. Why are we throwing it all away?

DENNIS F. HANRAHAN, La Habra

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The story of the celebration at the White House of the 25th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon appears inside your paper! I looked to see what stories appeared on the front page. Of course there were extremely important stories there but can the story about a wife suing her ex-husband for a share of his lottery winnings possibly be considered more important than the anniversary of the first moon walk?

Unfortunately, not only the newspaper but the evening news on commercial television brushed off the anniversary with a story so brief that if you blinked, you missed it. Public television presented the full speech of Neil Armstrong and enough coverage that one could grasp the significance and flavor of the celebration taking place in the White House. KCET marked the occasion with two full hours of excellent programming on the Apollo missions.

In your story a 12-year-old girl who was present at the White House ceremony was quoted as saying, “At first, I didn’t really believe people could go to the moon.” It seems obvious she hadn’t realized that people already had done so and it seems equally obvious why she may not have known.

EILEEN SCHULTZ, San Marino

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What was the first word uttered from the surface of the moon? Most of the sound-bite- happy TV retrospectives cut Neil Armstrong’s first two syllables before his dramatic “ . . . Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” The missing word is “Houston.” But thanks to TimesLink and a few other sources, a number of us with a special interest in historical accuracy on both moon and Earth can repeatedly confirm this significant bit of space trivia--with pride.

ALVIN HOUSTON LAWSON, Garden Grove

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Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon on July 20, 1969, wanted to spend the evening of the 25th anniversary of that event at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics banquet in Los Angeles, where 500 people gathered to pay tribute to the contractors and subcontractors who designed and built the wondrous Apollo 11. The White House even advanced the time of its ceremony honoring Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins for Armstrong to fly to Los Angeles for the banquet.

But there was a problem with the flight and he could not make it in time for the banquet. So it is ironical that in 1969, he boarded a spacecraft that got him to the moon as planned, but in 1994, an airline could not get him to Los Angeles on schedule. How times have changed.

SHIRLEY THOMAS Ph.D., Professor, USC (Author of “Men of Space” book series.)