Some days, when picking out content for the next day’s edition of The Express, we find a piece that gives pause and spurs reflection.

This is the case with the Photo of the Day in today’s edition, on page B7 (or at this link: https://www.lockhaven.com/uncategorized/2025/07/apollo-11/).

It’s a picture of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin being interviewed from the isolation unit on the USS Hornet following their splashdown from Apollo 11.

Apollo 11, of course, was the first time humans had set foot on the moon — “one small step,” and all that.

We have opined previously — collectively, in an Our View — about how frankly cool some of the stories we interact with on a daily basis are.

There’s the tragedies and horrors, too — plenty of trauma, sadness and things that will need therapy later.

But then you see a photo like that one: three of our best and brightest beaming at the camera, knowing they accomplished something historical. Something that advanced all of mankind, not just their own personal careers.

And, at least for me, it really makes me think.

Think about what that moment meant for those men, after they’ve had a few minutes for the realization of what they’ve accomplished to set in.

They set foot on the moon in 1969, after a lengthy, plodding development process for the technology required.

That subject is sprawling and makes for a fascinating Wikipedia dive if you’re bored sometime. The general gist is that American space development was proceeding fairly slowly until the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik, which basically spurred our government in the depths of the Cold War to spend more time and resources on beating the USSR to the moon.

This involved the use of former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun and his team, who had been secreted away to the US as part of Operation Paperclip following World War II.

That is, again, another Wikipedia dive.

The Germans were critical in developing the Saturn V — the rocket that propelled Apollo.

This adds a layer of history to the image being just “it’s historic.” Delving towards alternate history, if World War II ends differently — not even in Allied defeat, just a stalemate or anything other than complete victory — it’s doubtful this image happens. That means not just that this image traces back to World War II, but back to everything that led to it: the demands placed upon Germany following World War I, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, etc.

History is fascinating.

But beyond the past, think about what their impression of the future was at the time.

Aldrin, still alive at 95, has been vocal in supporting a push for Mars, while Armstrong and Collins are both deceased.

I find myself empathizing, to a degree, with Aldrin: in 2024, he endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, citing Trump’s promotion of space exploration in the face of public interest slowdowns.

With the gift of retrospection, we can deem that much of that was coming from Elon Musk, who has issues of his own.

But the message, I feel, is still important.

From a sleepy rural town with my boots planted firmly on the ground — I don’t like heights — it seems to me that space exploration represents something that our society is sorely missing these days: a unifying goal that we can work towards and take pride in as a nation and as a world.

Easy for me to say.

But then I look at that photo again, and I see the face of human progress at its zenith.

Let me explain.

The closest thing we have in today’s world is our society’s current obsession — or at least the CEOs and shareholders among us — with so-called Artificial Intelligence. The granularity of what we actually have at the moment, marketing terms notwithstanding, is more complex.

But ultimately, what’s our grand science fair project in 2025? To replace ourselves.

AI presents a mockery of humanity. It is comprised of masks, lies and hallucinations and is approached with a level of tech-bro zealotry reminiscent more of a cult than of true innovation — and this is made only more ominous when you think about the consequences of this quest to invent a machine-god.

Whereas the three men in this photo represent arguably the peak of humans, as human beings, achieving goals far beyond our dusty beginnings, AI represents the self-inflicted decline of our species.

Originally, AI was billed as this great equalizer that would do the drudgery while allowing the time and freedom for us to pursue our passions, be it writing or artistry or inventing or what have you.

Instead, the last several years have revealed the lie as the writers, artists and inventors are the ones whose jobs are the most under attack.

I’m not possessed of sufficient hubris to think that this column does anything appreciable to change that or even to shift public opinion in any meaningful way.

I look back at those shining faces from 1969 one more time and, longingly, I think about how incredible it would be to live in a world where humans were celebrated for challenging their abilities and pushing our species to new heights instead of the one we are getting, where so many of us are instead cheering for our own irrelevance — or even extinction.

Arianna McKee is the Design and Editorial Page Editor at The Express.