Moon men.

I'm not sure what to say about the Apollo 11 mission that put men on the moon for the first time fifty years ago today. So many have said so much that we've run out of intelligent or even reasonable things to say, and major media outlets are resorting to the stupid and offensive.

I take second place to no one in my admiration of the astronauts. I think they were brilliant and maybe a little crazy. You look at the size of the three-stage rocket in comparison to anything man-made you know, and someone tells you, "Okay, Neil, we're going to put you in the top of that thirty-six story thing and blast this bastard out of the atmosphere. You'll go about 239,000 miles as the crow flies, as far as all the planets in the solar system shoved together. That is, if you don't blow up, and if all the right parts fall off when they're supposed to and none of the wrong parts falls off at all. Then we're going to plop you on the moon in a little vehicle, and then we're going to get you back off the moon, and after a little rendezvous with the bigger vehicle, you'll all come back, another 239,000 miles, then a fiery death plummet into the ocean."

"Sure."

"You and Buzz will hit the moon surface while Mike stays up top."

"Sounds good."

"None of this seems crazy, does it?"

"When do we go?"

Now, I'm not saying that the conversation went like that -- they probably used a lot of smartypants mathematics -- but I think when you got it to its essence, that's where it was.

And it was glorious.

If I'd been a grown-up watching these guys, and could grasp the scale of the mission, I'd have probably thought they were crazy. When I was a kid at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and I saw the cockpits on World War II airplanes, I thought those guys were crazy. If everybody was like me, we'd have never gotten off the ground.

Oh, I have my moments, but when it comes to heights, find another pigeon. I know plenty of guys who made it through jump school; I would have washed out for sure. Literally -- rather than evacuate the airplane I'd more likely have evacuated my innards. I can be brave about a lot of things, but I literally cannot make myself do things like that.

Or get on top of a gigantic rocket and blast off the planet.

Fortunately, it's never come up at work.

So you'll never hear any bad words about astronauts from me. Amazing bunch of folks.

The moon, however, is another matter. As we've examined before on this blog, the moon is a publicity hound that likes making trouble for me. I hope Neil and Buzz gave it a good kick in the moon pants while they were up there.