There is a documentary on the acting career of Tom Hanks that I recently watched. He really has an impressive portfolio of movies covering a range of characters. As a result I have been re-watching some of his movies that I particularly enjoyed. Just last week I watched “Apollo 13,” the movie versions of events that unfolded on the seventh crewed-Apollo mission during the spring of 1970. While the launch was successful, the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module failed two days into the mission. The crew instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17 – while the nation held its breath.Apollo 11 and 12 had landed on the moon amidst national television coverage. By the time of Apollo 13 it was “oh, another moon landing…” and the broadcast networks had no coverage until the drama of the accident began to unfold.

Today is the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.  It even caught me by surprise.  54 years have gone by! Yikes! Both Tom Hanks and I have gotten a little grey and we’ve not been back to the moon.  I am sure we will get there soon enough. In the meantime I have my Tom Hanks retrospective to watch.