It is my belief that America started its backslide when we stopped reaching for the stars. What I mean by that is when we, as a nation, had the goal of reaching the moon before the Soviet Union we were a more united populous.

Yesterday when SpaceX's Falcon Heavy lifted off from Cape Canaveral Florida's Pad 39-A It was 1969 all over again for me. 1969 was the year when Apollo astronauts blasted off from that very same pad in their quest to put men on the moon. SpaceX's more lofty goal is to eventually put a man on Mars.

As I watched the liftoff and subsequent return landing of two of the Falcon booster rockets I was transformed to back in time to being a wide-eyed seven-year-old kid who dreamed of breaking the bonds of Earth.  The above video highlights the almost hard-to-believe-it-happened landing of those boosters. Why haven't we always landed rockets this way?

I hope the success of SpaceX and other aerospace companies who are forging the way into space will inspire more young people to pursue dreams and ideas that others have said were impossible. I believe anything is possible if you want it bad enough.

Maybe all it will take to motivate us to reach beyond our limits is the image of Star Man, the driver of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster. That was the payload in yesterday's test launch. Currently, Star Man is on a trajectory that will carry him to Mars and more. I hope he won't mind that a few us old guys are riding along with him on his epic journey.

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