This past week marked fifty years since the moon launch which says Astronaut Armstrong actually walked on the surface of the moon, a first for humankind. It was a heady moment for a boy who had grown up dreaming about space exploration and reading both science and science fiction about space travel. The moon launch was the product of thousands of hours of preparation with attention to myriad details from the stitches on the space suits to the largest rocket engines. All of this began major further work on exploration of the solar system and beyond. It produced the International Space Station and new kinds of space vehicles. Few of these had the emotional appeal of the moon walk, but the effect on society and especially on technology has been huge. Much that we now take for granted as part of our everyday technology grew out of the preparations that backed the moon launch. That we can now have computer power in a watch that fifty years ago filled whole rooms has made us rather unconscious of the amount of change in the technology around us. All this is amazing and often wonderful. Unfortunately, there has been less progress in settling conflicts without violence, in combating prejudice, in defeating poverty, in waging peace. Perhaps building a better technology is easier than building a better world, but the success of the one might inspire us to go for the moon in the other as well.