The decade Kennedy said we would go to the Moon ends today. We went.

May 25, 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

July 20, 1969: Tranquility Base. Eagle has landed.

He said “before this decade is out.” He could not have known exactly what that meant in terms of the work required — no one could have in 1961. In 1961 we had fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds of suborbital spaceflight to our credit. The Saturn V didn’t exist. The Apollo capsule didn’t exist. The lunar module didn’t exist. The entire architecture of the Moon mission was yet to be decided, let alone built and tested.

He committed anyway. And the people who heard the commitment — the engineers and scientists and astronauts and flight controllers and hundreds of thousands of workers — made it real.

The 1960s: twelve Americans in Earth orbit (Mercury, Gemini). Two Americans orbiting the Moon (Apollo 8). Two Americans on the Moon and back (Apollo 11). One more crew landed at the Ocean of Storms (Apollo 12). Three Americans who barely survived when their oxygen tank exploded (Apollo 13, splashdown December 17, 1970 — which I realize is 1970, but I’m counting it in spirit).

The 1960s also: Kennedy dead. King dead. Bobby Kennedy dead. Vietnam still going. Cities burning. The American project straining at its seams.

Both things are the 1960s. Both are true.

I’m going to pour a glass of something and think about it for a few minutes. Then I’m going to go to bed, because Betty is already there.

The Moon. We went.

Goodnight, sixties. You were terrible and magnificent.