… For thousands of years we had tilled fields with primitive wooden tools; but with our freedoms in place, it took only 185 years for an American to make the first journey into space -- aboard a spacecraft called Mercury.  Just as the world had watched the American Revolution bring freedom to our shores, they now watched as the fruits of our freedom launched a man into space.  The fervor of reaching for the stars challenged all of us and drew us together with a single purpose.  It is that single p …