Rand provides an impressive example of the human mind's ability to see only what it wants to see, and to rationalize anything into an ideology. It's as if Rand's Objectivism failed her on the occasion of Apollo 11.

Rand speaks in the singular about "Man's mind" and virtue and discipline, consistent with her belief about the primacy of the individual. Yet it's an objective fact that Apollo was only possible because hundreds of thousands of people worked together over many years. Apollo represents the high watermark of what Americans can achieve working together; never, outside of wartime, did so many Americans band together to make common cause for a goal other than money.

It was a thoroughly collective effort at all levels. The crews trained to work together with one mind. The teams in Mission Control drilled for thousands of hours to create a single integrated entity under the command of the Flight Director. The assembly lines aspired to work in perfect synchronization, and the planners brought together material and people across a continent to converge on Cape Canaveral on a certain day at a certain time to light that candle.

And yet, to Rand, Neil and Buzz lofted themselves to the Moon on wings of pure willpower. Apollo as a triumph of the individual will, and nothing more.

I can see the perspective from which Rand's view is inspiring and uplifting. We all admire heroes. Yet it's not only an inaccurate view of reality, it's a view that demeans and dismisses the work of so many other people who never got to share the spotlight. Where is the army of pencil-necked geeks in white short-sleeved shirts with pocket protectors, in Rand's universe? Where are the teams of scientists who toiled quietly to pick safe landing sites for the heroes, and whose real work began only after Apollo returned boxes of rocks to Earth?

We didn't get to the Moon by wishing real hard. We got to the Moon by working hard, and working together.