Nicely said, Dr. Hudgins. "Achievement Day" should become a real annual event.

Human Achievement Day! Great Idea!

Thanks for the inspiration, Edward!

I remember it well, almost like it was yesterday. July 20th 1969, we just were cleaning up operations in the Ashau Valley. The choppers were still hauling out the dead and wounded. A few days later someone told me that Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon. I said something about it felt like we had just done that, walked on the moon. And after I heard it on Armed Forces radio I wasn't sure I believed it as it was reported by Walter Cronkite. We didn't like him too much back in the day. I was drafted out of Rocketdyne, working in the space program but somehow didn't' feel like part of team anymore that put them up there. It wasn't the best part of my life so far. We had just lost one of our own and put many others on their last chopper ride.

I agree.
One Caveat: The need for a supportive culture, is becoming a fading dream. If the present trends continue achievement will be contrary or apart from the decaying supportive culture.

I have always admired the billions of achievements from the unknown inventor of the wheel on up. With all the horrific news headlines, which I won't detail, you have managed to lift my spirits ten fold. I can now go out and keep achieving. Thank you.

My candidate for Man's greatest achievement would be Ford's introduction of the mass produced automobile, an enabling technology which has given new choices to millions of people and still does today. (And it needs to be celebrated because the evil greens are trying to take it away from us.)

Thanks for the visibility and promotion here! I'm a couple of days late, so I'll do better next year. Especially since I'm a rocket scientist! If anyone wants to help or encourage more people to do great things above and beyond Earth's surface, I've got a great book for them and lots of energy to assist.

Let's go back to the Moon and on to Mars.

I remember that day so well. I was a teenager watching the events on a tiny little 4X5 inch mini TV, but completely enthralled.

I had already been reading Ayn Rand and was struggling but achieving the integration of so many concepts important to a young adult seeking definition.

With that moon landing event, I passed a threshold of understanding that teams can be a collection of individuals rather than an overriding subordination of the individual to the team. And that as an acknowledged team of individuals, so much more can be accomplished and retain the recognition of the individual than the forced participation of the collective.

I had been struggling with this with my High School soccer team and how I was supposed to be a "team player" rather then an overriding "star" and all that. The "team player" concept failing against individual recognition allowed for the acknowledgement of self worth which allows for the easy recognition and extension to other individuals of their accomplishing value and worth.

This is the basis for why a Hank Reardon would respect and prefer to deal with a Ken Danagger than an Orrin Boyle.

The moon landing was an accomplishment of a nation that was still based upon individualism and that basis of achievement. This is the basis of civilization.

It is just horrendous that we now have that critical line of distinction having been crossed. Participation in a joint effort is now a forced matter of the "common good". This is the basis of barbarism.

Yes. I shudder to think of the high risk that that astronauts would be stranded and die on the moon. But they pulled it off perfectly, all without modern microprocessors as we know them today. When we had the Space Shuttle, I don't' think most people realized how much farther the Apollo astronauts went. They were the only ones ever to see the earth as a sphere and not stretched out below.

Yay us! And Yay U.S.!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cVOO...

Jan

How about individual achievement day as well? Aristotle's metaphysics, Locke's Essay, and Rand's Atlas are individual achievements which are the greatest human triumphs.

Human Achievement Day Sounds Inspiring. I´d recall things like Mussorgsky´s Night On Bald Mountain or Pictures At An Exhibition, all of Tchaicovsky´s work, and also Stravinsky. No doubt Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Chopin and other music geniusses, as well as Benjamin Franklin; Einstein, Nietzche, Plato, Ayn Rand, Muhammad Ali, Manny Pacquiao, Lionel Messi, Juan Román Riquelme, Pelé, Maradona; Air Jordan, Babe Ruth; Rösen, Favaloro, Napoleon, etc etc etc. So many greats, like da Vinci, Michealangello, Dalí, etc. Must all be recognized with this date, of international stature !

Lunar Landing Day kind of fades into antiquity compared with other great achievements of mankind that have really done things for us all. Landing on the moon is a nice technological achievement, but its not of a lot of practical significance in itself.

Yes, after enduring our 'Faux' faults and so called failures it's about time we boost moral!

The one thing missing in the article is, "how do we ensure that a culture of achievement doesn't die?" We read about what happened when the Roman empire collapsed; what followed was 1,000 years of barbarism. What can we do to ensure that, even in a collapse, we don't have to face 1,000 years of failure?

big deal. since we were able to achieve putting people on the moon how has that helped humanity to live better on earth? that is nothing more than a side show. just imagine how much good could have been done with the monies that nasa wastes, of course that assumes the government was honest.