The 50th anniversary of landing a man on the moon turned our thoughts back to the 1960s. It was a simpler time when mutually assured destruction provided comfort during the Cold War.
Clicking through early childhood memories, the decade was a mixture of bottle rockets, Saturn rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
A particular image on our View-Master reel of time drew a lingering gaze. A very young boy is sitting on the front steps of his small-town, Arkansas home with his mom one summer evening. They are serenaded by the oscillating drone of cicadas while contemplating the Space Race.
Pointing to the heavens and the earth’s nightlight, the child asks: “Is that where they are shooting rockets?”
“Yes,” his mother confirmed.
After pondering the consequences of firing missiles at the moon, he blurts out a disturbing observation: “Don’t they know they’ll blow it up?”
He was relieved to learn that the lunar missiles would be carrying a different payload than their nuclear-warhead-toting brethren.
The moon would be spared from target practice.
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