Tag: space

When we work together as one

“The stars are not the limit; they are just the beginning.”
— Buzz Aldrin, NASA astronaut and Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, second human to walk on the Moon, July 20, 1969.

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Late Spring, 1961. Summer vacation loomed large in Mount Pleasant, Texas. In a few short days, school kids all over town would swap classrooms and books for bicycles and the swimming pool at Dellwood Park.

Seventh grade in the piney woods of East Texas that year felt less like the happy-go-lucky sixth-grade playground I left behind the year before. More like the classroom confinement of high school, soon to come.  

Campuses for both schools were separated only by a faculty parking lot, where David Neeley and I played tetherball many afternoons after school. Waiting for Mr. Ricks to complete his first bus route before coming back for a south-side in-town run.

Just four years earlier, the Russian satellite Sputnik 1 entered orbit, launching dreams and fascination in millions of schoolkids about space and the beginning of the “Space Race.” When comic books like “Sky Masters of the Space Force” focused on the seemingly realistic adventures of an American astronaut.

I’d read the comic books. And the stack of Popular Science magazines sharing my closet with issues of Hot Rod and Car Craft. I heard about the Space Race but understood little about it. Seemed like something politicians promoted on the evening news.

News of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, filled the Friday, May 5, evening television segment. Little more than three weeks after Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin marked a major Space Race victory for the Soviets as the first human in outer space.

I still remember Dad turning on the cabinet model Zenith TV, a relatively new addition to our living room. Vacuum tubes hummed as the set warmed up, eventually rendering a flickering black-and-white image of what was then known as Cape Canaveral in Florida.

News film replayed the day’s events, showing the “Freedom 7” capsule sitting atop the Mercury-Redstone rocket in the morning sunshine. Even as the countdown hit the final ten seconds, I knew it had all taken place hours ago. But I was holding my breath anyway.

Clouds of white smoke erupted. TV speakers boomed with a deep rumble, sending shock waves shaking Mom’s leopard TV lamp planter she’d purchased with S&H Green Stamps.

Then Shepard’s cool, calm voice registered, “Roger, liftoff, and the clock has started!” Saying it like he was just driving downtown to the Perry’s five-and-dime store, or something.

For little more than fifteen minutes, I wasn’t sitting on the living room floor in East Texas. I was there in Freedom 7, headed for the heavens. I wondered how the G-forces felt. How the sky looked, turning from bright blue to deep purple, then into the heavens’ darkness. Seeing the Earth’s curve. I wondered how it felt to be the first American to see the world as a shrinking sphere.

With the replay of the splash down in the Atlantic, I felt excitement. I felt happiness. I felt the dreamlike exuberance of realizing that the Space Age was no longer just a comic book fantasy; it was reality.

Going to bed that night, I looked at Jack, my childhood cockatiel feathered friend in his cage, and marveled at the thought that today humanity had soared higher than any bird ever could.

Somehow, school seemed less like confinement. Space travel had opened a whole new world to youngsters everywhere. For a nation, it placed the universe within arm’s reach, empowering even kids in small Texas towns to reach for the stars.

Thursday evening of last week, I was that kid again. Watching Artimus II return from a trip around the moon and back, bringing good news and astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen to the exact location calculated and at the precise planned time.

The world was ready for some good news, and Artimes II just might be the best news in a while for young and old alike. Reminding us of what we are capable of when we work together as one.

Reaching for the stars.

—Leon Aldridge

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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’

Moments of wonder, to see and remember

“Sun, moon, and starry sky early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think — all the celestial lights are present at the same time! These are moments of wonder — see them and remember.”
— Vera Nazarian, Armenian-Russian American writer.

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It was a filler class—a last-minute pick because I was three hours short of graduation at East Texas State University. Years ago. But it fit my schedule and allowed me to graduate. “ESC1361 Astronomy.”

That decision left me with a love for everything celestial. A deeper appreciation and an insatiable curiosity about the wonder we call “the heavens.” The classroom hours were anything but easy, but “the labs” were a blast. “Classes” in the dark of East Texas nights in a field somewhere outside of Commerce. Observing stars, planets, constellations, and more.

Fast-forward about 25 years to Texas Hill Country starry nights. The back porch at our house just above the Medina River near Pipe Creek, where evening conversations and cooking outside with my kids were a thing.

“The stars are beautiful,” said daughter Robin, then about 15-16 years old. “They are,” I agreed. “It’s hard to believe that night sky universe just goes on forever. Without end.”

Silence prevailed as I watched the stars twinkle as Robin processed what I had just said.

“What do you mean,” she asked?

“The sky, the heavens, space,” I replied with a shrug. “It’s infinite – never ends.”

More silence.

“Dad, it has to end somewhere.”

“Nope.”

“How can that be,” she asked, her voice rising.

“OK, let’s say there is a stop sign a couple billion light years past planet Pluto,” I tested her. “What is beyond that sign? There is no such thing as nothing in space.”

“Mind boggling,” Robin said slowly.

“It’s like time,” I compared. “There never has been a time before time. Time has always been.”

“Awe Dad, come on. This is too much for one night,” Robin exclaimed. “It’s hurting my brain.”

Fast-forward once more to last Thursday night. When I was contemplating turning in for the evening, but one last check of messages revealed several about Northern Lights. Solar storms creating an aurora typically seen in high-latitude regions but rarely visible in Texas. Happening over Texas at that very moment.

A scan of the sky from my front porch revealed nothing—zilch. “Good,” I thought. I’m ready for bed anyway.” I checked my phone one more time and found images posted from Shelby County with, “You can’t see them with the naked eye. But they show up in photos.”

OK, I’m a lifelong photographer. And never had I ever captured a picture of something I couldn’t see. The universe is infinite, and time has infinitely, well … been time. But you can’t take a photo of something you can’t see. To prove my theory, I marched back outside, pointed my cell phone camera toward the east and above the streetlights, and pulled the trigger with a smirk.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered aloud when I saw it on the screen. Red, blue, and green tinted arches blending into a solid black sky. I looked back at the night sky in disbelief. Yep, it was black. Several more experimental photos of “darkness” yielded an array of colors that I could not see otherwise. I was super excited. After sending images to a friend to celebrate my findings, we were on the edge of town ten minutes later, looking for fewer lights, fewer trees, and better results.

The findings might have been more conclusive about better results, but the phenomenon was the same. Aim at a black patch of sky, snap a photo, and … voila! Beautiful views of celestial sightings on my camera.

It was breathtaking to capture pictures of “the northern lights a-runnin’ wild,” to borrow from Johnny Horton’s classic 1960s song.

Standing under an East Texas night’s blanket of darkness collecting images last week, I remembered nights in Northeast Texas long ago. Peering through a telescope into an endless universe of heavenly bodies for college credit.

And I also thought about my daughter’s attempts to comprehend the infinity of space and time. Like her, this night was almost too much for one night; it was hurting my brain.

Plus, pictures of celestial occurrences in an infinite universe that I could not see but could easily photograph. Truly “moments of wonder — to see and remember.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.