IRVINE, CA--These few lines from Ayn Rand's essay on the launch of Apollo 11 were not meant for last Saturday's horror, but can serve as a quiet reminder to us of the triumphs understandably obscured by the space program's recent tragedy.

      "That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt--this was the cause of the event's attraction and of the stunned numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being--an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality.

      "Frustration is the leitmotif in the lives of most men, particularly today--the frustration of inarticulate desires, with no knowledge of the means to achieve them. In the sight and hearing of a crumbling world, Apollo 11 enacted the story of an audacious purpose, its execution, its triumph, and the means that achieved it--the story and the demonstration of man's highest potential."