Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, July 1969
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, I bring you a TED talk that credits the telling of stories with launching (ahem) the long-term project of space exploration.
In his talk at TEDxAukland, Alexander McDonald traces the interplay between science and story that began with Galileo and eventually led to the lunar landing, fifty years ago today. From a 1638 manuscript by the Bishop of Hereford positing a goose-powered contraption for human flight, through tales from Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne and others, it’s an interesting story about interesting stories, helping us to see how innovation is fueled in important ways by narrative imagination.
Lori Notes 
Ooh! I like that idea of stories having the power to transform the future 🙂
I felt like the TED speaker make a good case. And it points out that progress doesn’t only involve the folks with engineering degrees–