Galileo was seventy years old when the Inquisition required him to recant his conviction that the earth moved around the sun. In those days, it was believed that God had placed the earth at the center of the universe, and to believe otherwise was to offend God. Some said that even as he was recanting, Galileo muttered under his breath, "But still it moves." See Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 275–278 . Probably this is apocryphal, but the fact was that no matter what he was forced to say to save his life and freedom, the earth did move, and Galileo (and others) knew it.
Fast-forward from the 1600s to the beginning of the 20th century. A small group of men are standing among the sand dunes of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Two of them have devoted years of their lives to solving the problem of controlled, heavier-than-air, powered flight. Others before them have solved various aspects of the problem; some have come very close to complete success. Within the international fellowship of experimenters, men have given their lives, their fortunes, and their careers to learn how to climb above the earth and to control their voyages to the stars.
On this day, December 17, 1903, Orville Wright takes the controls and flies into history. For 12 seconds—traveling a mere 120 feet—he proves that sustained, controlled flight is possible. Others will open the door wider and excel beyond what Wilbur and Orville Wright have done. But in those 12 seconds, all of aviation history—from Sopwiths and Fokkers to Cessnas and Boeings—was born. These two men—and the many others who also worked on the aviation problem—knew it was possible to break the bonds of Earth, the ignorance and confusion that prevented "lift off." And unlike Galileo, they were able to act on that knowledge in a way that moved humanity forward.
