Today, July 20, 2019, marks the 50th anniversary of the famous moon landing. As far as we know this was the first time that a human set foot on another world. This was the pinnacle of human technological achievement – we did what was once considered impossible – a human was sent to the moon, walked there, and was safely returned to the Earth. Astonishing.

I remember watching this event as a child and thinking that someday I myself might walk on the moon one day, maybe I would live on Mars, maybe ordinary people like me would journey out to the stars themselves. This should have been the beginning of humanity’s epic adventure to colonize the Galaxy – to become a space faring people. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Somehow we all remained Earthbound. And worse, it doesn’t appear as though we’ve accomplished anything of note since then. All our technological developments since 1969 have really been just derivative of that Apollo mission.

We are still plagued with war, pestilence, disease, famine, poverty, crime and inhumane behavior. We are still little better than ape-like savages pelting each other with rocks and clubbing each other with tree branches. We have not evolved or grown at all in the past 50 years. We’re still just monkeys that once flew to the moon. Sure, we have Twitter and Google and an ever growing number of TV channels to keep us amused but, sadly, we have not lived up to our potential.

Maybe the next 50 years will be different. I hope so. However, I doubt that I will ever see the Earth from space. Humans woke up, for a brief moment, and then went back to sleep. Maybe it’s better that way. What could the likes of us bring to the rest of the universe other than the same confusion and frustration that we live with here at home?