Nashville remembers Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years later, looks to future of space exploration

The Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 wowed millions as a first in human history, and Nashville has many of its own memories and connections to that momentous July 20.

While the Apollo 11 mission had an impact on people worldwide, it inspired individuals in Nashville to go into the air and space industry and to push for scientific progress — many of whom continue to work in space research to this day.

Fifty years later, people continue to remember the impact of the monumental event.

How the moon landing inspired Tennessee residents

Bob Jacobs, deputy associate administrator of communications at NASA, works in Washington, D.C., but his roots are in Nashville. 

He was 8 years old when the first man stepped on the moon. He remembers being "glued to the television" in his parents' living room  on Richbriar Court, amazed that what he was seeing was real, that "it wasn't science fiction."

"It shows what can be done if there is the national will and commitment to do something," Jacobs said.

During that time, Jacobs said, he kept a scrapbook with clippings of Tennessean coverage of the space race. He still has it to this day.

The landing left an "indelible impact," and after working in communications and broadcasting, that impact of Apollo 11 led him to job with NASA in 2000.

Rick Chappell, former chief scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, was inspired to study science and math because of the Sputnik launch and Kennedy's speech to Congress on May 25, 1961.

Chappell, now a research professor at Vanderbilt, was doing satellite research in Palo Alto, California, at the time of the moon landing. 

He remembers sitting by his wife in their California home and holding their not quite 1-year-old son on his lap as they watched the fuzzy, black-and-white TV screen showing Neil Armstrong taking humankind's first steps on the moon.

After the landing, there was a steady realization that it was "the most significant human exploration that's ever been done," said Chappell, who later did research with NASA and even trained as a backup crewman for space missions.

"Apollo is indicative of the kind of accomplishments and the type of activities our country gives to people," Chappell said.

What do people think about space exploration today?

Even 50 years later, the moon landing still has an affect on people who didn't even witness the event.

Eli Collins, 7, recently visited the Tennessee State Museum with his dad and saw the moon rocks given to the state by former President Richard Nixon. Collins finds space exploration exciting and thinks space travel might happen one day.

Danielle Turner, a high school science teacher who recently moved to Nashville, visited the Adventure Science Center's Space Chase exhibit.

She thinks the moon landing anniversary is sparking a greater focus on air and space research and, hopefully, encouraging more children to explore careers in science.

Today, most Americans seem positive about U.S. involvement in space. A 2018 Pew Research poll found that 65% of Americans think it's essential for the U.S. to be a leader in space exploration, while 27% say it isn't essential.

While many have viewed space exploration as a positive, not everyone has seen it as something worth investing in with taxpayer dollars. Some people wrote to U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr. at the time, arguing that it wasn't worthwhile to spend money on space missions.

But five years before the moon landing, then-President John F. Kennedy briefly spoke to the importance of space exploration in a speech at Vanderbilt University in 1963.

"Modern cynics and skeptics see no more reason for landing a man on the moon, which we shall do, than the cynics and skeptics of half a millennium ago saw for the discovery of this country," Kennedy said.

Chappell and Jacobs both said funding for space exploration extends far beyond our work in the stars. It's given us, they said, many of the technologies we regularly use today.

"If not for investments in space, your Google Maps doesn't work," Jacobs said. "The world's financial systems don't work. Our communications don’t work."

Chappell said the moon landing continues to be of lasting importance even in 2019 and in the future.

"(Apollo 11) had very positive influences on American society and American commitment to itself," he said.

Nolan Ryan is a summer intern with the Tennessean and a senior at Hillsdale College in Michigan. You can reach him at nryan@gannett.com.