Moon Landing: July 20, 1969. No other act of human exploration ever laid a plaque saying "We Come In Peace For All Mankind"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) July 20, 2013"For me, the most ironic token of that moment in history is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the Moon. It reads: "We came in peace for all mankind." As the United States was dropping 7.5 megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity: We would harm no one on a lifeless rock. "
Excerpt from Carl Sagan (1994, pp.206-215)
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
New York: Random House
via: http://alexpetrov.com/memes/astro/apollo.html
