http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1604-Apollo_11_on_Human_Achievement_Day.aspx

The Piece:

Apollo 11 on Human Achievement Day

by Edward Hudgins

July 20, 2005 -- There are holidays and days of commemoration stretching
from New Year's to Independence Day to Christmas. A new one should be added
to the calendar - informally rather than by government decree: Human
Achievement Day -- July 20th, the date in 1969 when human beings first
landed on the Moon.

The most obvious benefit of living in society with others is that we can
each specialize in the production of goods and services at which we are best
and then trade with others, making us all prosperous. But in society we also
have the opportunity to witness the achievements of others, which are
constant reminders just how wonderful life can be. And among the greatest
achievements in history, individuals using the three pounds of gray matter
we each have in our heads figured out how to go to the Moon.

Think of the millions of parts and components and the engineering skills
needed to make them function together in the Saturn V rocket, the Columbia
Command module and the Eagle lunar lander that carried Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin to the surface of another world. Think of the applications of
old knowledge and the discovery of new knowledge needed to create those
incredible systems.

Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand understood the full moral meaning of these
efforts when she wrote, "Think of what was required to achieve that mission:
think of the unpitying effort; the merciless discipline; the courage; the
responsibility of relying on one's judgment; the days, nights and years of
unswerving dedication to a goal; the tension of the unbroken maintenance of
a full, clear mental focus; and the honesty." It took the highest, sustained
acts of virtue to create in reality what had only been dreamt of for
millennia.

Rand's take on the landing was particularly instructive because of her
novelist's understanding of art, which, at its best, is a selective
recreation of reality in light of the artist's values. Thus Michelangelo's
David and Beethoven's 9th portray humans as heroes. We go to art for
emotional fuel and for the vision of the world as it can be and should be.
In Apollo 11 she saw such a vision made manifest.

Concerning the pure exaltation from watching the launch from the Kennedy
Space Center, Rand said that, "What we had seen in naked essentials - but in
reality, not in a work of art - was the concretized abstraction of man's
greatness." The mission "conveyed the sense that we were watching a
magnificent work of art - a play dramatizing a single theme: the efficacy of
man's mind." And "The most inspiring aspect of Apollo 11's flight was that
it made such abstractions as rationality, knowledge, science perceivable in
direct, immediate experience. That it involved a landing on another
celestial body was like a dramatist's emphasis on the dimensions of reason's
power."

Of course the Moon landings were government-funded; if the private sector
had led the way we still probably would have traveled to the Moon, only some
years later. Today it is private entrepreneurs -- the kind who have given us
the personal computers, Internet and information revolution -- who are
turning their creativity to the final frontier. Burt Rutan, who won the
private X-Prize by placing a man into space twice in a two-week period on
the private, reusable SpaceShipOne, follows in the spirit of Apollo. The
celebration of those flights in late 2004 showed how healthy human beings
relish the display of efficacious minds.

So on July 20th let's each reflect on our achievements -- as individuals and
as we work in concert with others. Let's recognize that achievements of all
sorts -- epitomized by the Moon landings -- are the essence and the expected
of human life. Let's rejoice on this day and commemorate the best within us
with, as Rand would say, the total passion for the total heights!