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In the early to mid-1960s, Cape Canaveral wasn't located on a desolate strip of land in eastern Florida; it was nestled in Albuquerque's North Valley.

On Ninth Street. In the Gardner family's den, to be exact.

Beginning with the last Mercury launches and reaching a crescendo with the Gemini program, youthful astronaut J.L. Gardner could be found lying upside down, feet dangling over the back of a big, itchy, reddish couch, wearing a Baltimore Colts "space helmet," with blood rushing to the head as he listened to Walter Cronkite discuss his mission and eventually heard: "Liftoff. We have liftoff."

Absent Wiis, Xboxes, PlayStations and Nickelodeon TV, I suspect the space race of 1960s spawned imaginary Cape Canaverals like mine from coast to coast - maybe around the world.

For all that today's modern age presents to us, for all of our technology and innovation, nothing has matched the intense excitement or sense of human accomplishment that our space program generated, as we set to the task of fulfilling President Kennedy's vow of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" in a single decade.

While those words have gained more historic notoriety, it was Kennedy's speech at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962, that truly gave weight to his pledge. There, it was clear Kennedy understood where his desire to go to the moon fit in the grand scope of world history and in the context of his time.

They were gathered, Kennedy told his Rice audience, "in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of knowledge and ignorance."

Post-World War II America had spent the late 1950s in relative calm - making babies, grilling 'burgers and playing lawn darts.

But the times were restless. The Soviets led the space race and, even as Kennedy spoke, were placing ballistic missiles in Cuba. Too many Americans still labored to justify denying civil rights to men and women, simply because they weren't white. And then, as today, there were those who loudly argued that venturing to the moon was a waste of time and money.

Kennedy pressed on. In less than seven years after his Rice University speech, we put two men on the moon and returned them safely home.

In a few short days - on Friday - the documentary "In the Shadow of the Moon" will arrive at a theater not really near us. It's in Santa Fe, actually.

"Shadow" is rumored to be inspiring. Why wouldn't it be? Kennedy and his vision were inspirational and, in contrast to how we take space exploration for granted today, we understood the risks, anticipated the rewards and watched each mission in awe.

I can't wait to see it - not just to relive the time but also to give my sons a glimpse of not what merely America could accomplish but what humankind can achieve as well.