I was in a mobile home in eastern Oklahoma on July 20, 1969. A window air conditioner was laboring against the July heat, making it hard to hear the voice from the small, black-and-white television set. I hadn't eaten that day, nor had the covey of college students there with me. The iced tea was gone, and no one wanted to go to the kitchen long enough to make sandwiches or fix more tea. We had watched through the day as the ship neared the moon—time both stretching and condensing so that seconds were eternities and hours passed without notice. And then came the words: "The Eagle has landed."

And we breathed again, not realizing until then that we had held our breath. I had the irrelevant thought, "It should have been the double eagle." I didn't know then that it was. In fact, the Eagle carried a double eagle. Brother Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, at the time a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason, Valley of Los Angeles, had taken a small Supreme Council flag (photo above) to the moon. It had been hand embroidered in silk by Ms. Inga Baum, then the Librarian of the House of the Temple. I've seen it in the Americanism Museum in the House of the Temple. It's beautiful, but it evokes thoughts far beyond its beauty.

It has been to the moon. It rode that plume of fire and hope and dedication and passion into the sky, crossed space, and settled down again to the soil and rock of a different world. That is still hard for me to wrap my mind around—still hard to comprehend. The computer on which I am writing this tribute has many times the computing power of those to which our Brothers entrusted their lives on that historic first voyage through lunar space.

There was a spirit then, which is hard to recapture. If you are old enough, I'm sure you felt it and remember it today. There was a sort of pride, but it was not a matter of ego. It was the pride mixed with humility the old stonemasons must have felt when they looked at a just-finished cathedral. Appropriately, we feel both pride and humility in the presence of a great work of art, and the landing on the moon was just that, a work of art. Science made it possible, just as science makes possible the colors of the artist's palette, but the inspiration is not of science. Rather, it comes from the divine spark in man.

The landing was thirty years ago. Much has changed in three decades, and much of that change we owe to those men who risked everything to bring the heavens just a little closer. It is well to note and honor some of the Masons who made it possible. The following list of Masons in the space program was prepared by the Masonic Service Association of North America and was current as of June 28, 1985. No doubt since then many, many more Freemasons have contributed to America's exploration of space.

During this 30th anniversary of the lunar landing, may we look back with pride to what Masons have accomplished in space travel and look forward with confidence to what fellow Masons will achieve in space as we enter the Twenty-first Century.

Jim Tresner is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of The Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer writer for The Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of the popular anecdotal biography Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's highest honor, during the Supreme Council's October 1997 Biennial Session.