65 years passed from the first human flight to the moon landing. In 65 years all the machines used for flight were upgraded until one of them had all the required traits to let us lay foot on the Moon.
These technologies existed at the beginning of the 20th century, facilitating the first recognized flight of the human history, in 1903.
These images were captured only 67 years later, in 1969. It took us a bit more that half a century to get from about 10 meters to the moon.
This one of the best samples of human obsession at the largest scale. From the beginning of time we observed birds and imagined human-like beings that had the capacity to fly. We called them gods and angels if connected to religion. If they were related to popular tradition they were fairies, and if they lacked the capability to fly, they had an animal companion able to fly, and clearly big enough to be rode. If we are talking modern age, the human learned to fly, and understood that a man without any equipment is not able to fly for a long period of time. But we managed to ignore that, and we created superheroes, men that simply ignored the laws of physics. But that’s fiction. What about reality? In reality, we already got to Mars. In reality we revolutionize flight everyday. Military, civilian, space, individual flight. We make break-troughs in many domains, but none of them is as interesting as flight. Maybe the reason is that flight is a worldwide obsession, as opposed to others. The reasons may vary, but the result is the same: form the first flight to the Moon in 67 years and to Mars, a bit over a century.
From legends, to religions, to fiction, and then to reality. This is the spectacular progress of flight, showing us something about mankind and it’s obsessions.
Edward Cerbu 