I came across an old Screensavers show from 2002 and I got truly nostalgic. They started with a (now) surprising news that most of the Americans already had access to broadband but only 10% were using the offer. I was like, oh dear, how different the situation was at the time (and what a broadband connection would mean). Amazing, how far we’ve come since then in terms of technology, and how much it’s still there to be done as far as access to it is concerned.
But that wasn’t the part that made write this. It was the interview with Dick Gordon, an Apollo 12 crew member, who shared his experience with @Leo. Every time I hear stories about the NASA space program, I’m impressed by how fast the technology would evolve and how every single person involved in the program would put an enormous effort to make the impossible come true. The joy, pride, passion, the faith that they can actually make it happen.
The times were different, obviously, there was also the constant race with the Soviets, and it was also a research program after all, however, when I hear those personal stories, I sorta get the impression that nothing was as important as the courage and the determination to make it happen.
I was born many years after mankind made that giant leap, so I’ve only heard my dad telling me what it was like watching the first moon landing on TV. But I really hope I’ll be able to witness the first walk on Mars in the future, and I wish, we would be able to make all those other goals associated with the mission appear slightly less important, and just make it happen. Just for the sake of it. Just to prove to ourselves that we’re capable of putting the effort to create the technology to do that. We can move mountains if we really want to. This would be so rewarding and would give us all such a huge amount of self-confidence as well as experience, which are necessary to succeed in all other areas we’re involved in down here on Earth.
I believe that nowadays, we often tend to focus more on everything else involved with our goal than the goal itself. I’m not sure why that is. But it’s good to be able to look back and see what we’ve achieved (and it’s so easy to do that with today’s technology). Our heritage is what gives us the inspiration to go on and reach for our goals. We can be proud of ourselves, can’t we? 
So yeah, that was the tech guy goes philosophy, chapter 1