Many of you may remember the title of this week’s column as a line from the song, “Fly Me to the Moon”. That song was written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Later that same year, Kaye Ballard recorded that song, and it became a big hit on the song charts.

You may wonder why we’re writing about this. It’s because July 20 is known as “Moon Day” in honor of Apollo 11 landing on the moon on July 20, 1969. The three astronauts on that historic flight were Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr. The landing module that sat on top of the Saturn V rocket that launched them into space was called, “The Eagle”. When the landing module touched down on the moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the phrase that would become famous, “The Eagle has landed.”

Several hours later Armstrong would be the first person to ever set foot on the moon. As he did so, he made another statement that would also be forever remembered, “That’s one small step for man, one great leap for mankind.” Those of you who are old enough, probably remember being glued to a TV set, nervously watching as The Eagle made its historic landing on the moon.

This space mission was a vision of President John F. Kennedy. On May 25, 1961, Kennedy made a speech to the joint session of Congress. In that speech he said it was, “time for a great new American enterprise – time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievements, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth”.

Later, on September 12, 1962, he gave his rousing speech, “We Choose to Go to the Moon”. That speech set the stage for NASA’s Apollo mission. It was like an item on a nation’s “bucket list”. To be able to accomplish this task meant finding personnel with the knowledge on how to accomplish this feat. This is where a man by the name of Dr. Wernher von Braun enters the picture.

Von Braun was one of the most significant rocket developers and proponents of space exploration in the twentieth century. He was from Germany and involved in the German’s V-2 rocket program in World War II. He arranged for his surrender to the Americans in the Austrian Alps in 1944. Upon his arrival in the US, he began working with the Americans on the development of their rocket systems until his death in 1977. Von Braun became a US citizen in 1955.

While Kennedy was president he met with von Braun. Kennedy asked von Braun what it would take to send a man to the moon and bring him back safely. Von Braun’s classic memorable response was, “The will to do it.” That phrase has often been used by corporate leaders to focus on whether a company had the ‘will’ to accomplish a difficult task.

Von Braun’s team became the key designers in the Saturn rocket launch vehicles, which eventually took our space crew to the moon. What makes the mention of Dr. Wernher von Braun so personal to us, particularly me, (Lynn) is the fact that my father, Dr. Kenneth Thompson, was a fighter pilot during WWII. So, Dad and von Braun would have been on opposite sides during the war.

After the war, my dad went on to get his PhD in aeronautical engineering. He worked in the aerospace industry. In fact, he helped start UAH, the research institute in Huntsville, Alabama. Ironically, I can remember von Braun, Dr. Rudolph Hermann, another German scientist who came to the US to help with the rocket program, and my dad sitting around the kitchen table in our home, discussing “rocket science”. Dad said his dream bucket list included ‘fly me to the moon’. We’re happy he got the next best thing when he saw the landing happen.

I never imagined that I would eventually watch on live TV, someone from the US walking on the moon because of the efforts and knowledge of those men sitting around our kitchen table!

We mentioned earlier that sending someone safely to the moon and back was like completing an item on our nation’s ‘bucket list’. Obviously, it was much more than that. But it got us thinking – do you have a ‘bucket list’? Are there things in your life that you still want to accomplish while you still have time? If so, we encourage you to make plans, so those things do happen. In the words of von Braun, all it takes is “The will to do it.”7

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@TheBalanceCenter.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2023 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.