Saturday, July 20, 2019
50 Years Since the Future
Hard to believe that a half century has passed since man, specifically American man, first landed on the Moon. Hard to believe I'm 70. It was a boost to a Vietnam War-weary populace. To me, still high on Teilhard, it seemed like a logical step in evolution. Only a few year later, the visionless Nixon would terminate manned Moon exploration. Dreams of an outpost on the Moon and Mars exploration evaporated. All manned space efforts became Earth orbital. The Space Shuttle, seemingly a good idea at the time, a reusable space truck, took over the bulk of NASA funding. A beautiful tour-de-force in aerospace engineering, it turned out to be more expensive and vulnerable than hoped for. The idea of sending big payloads into orbit accompanied by human lives proved to be a very costly proposition. The Moon landing program launched many missions and they all, including Apollo XXIII came back alive. Two shuttles and many lives were lost before the program was ended, leaving us dependent on the Russians for getting our astronauts to the space shuttle. But still, even that very flawed program yielded lessons learned. And the Moon landing program never really ended as a scientific endeavor. The geological samples brought back have yielded knowledge about how we got here and are still being studied. We now know the Earth and Moon were formed following a monstrous collision between two planets, giving birth to a new earth and its indispensable satellite. Meanwhile, we've learned there is water on the moon and that makes the possibility of a permanent base more feasible. There may be commercial rewards. New technologies based on 21st Century engineering are being developed to return to the moon. Private companies are involved and the Chinese seem to be enthusiastic. More power to them. Maybe we WILL return to the Moon and get on to Mars. No easy task, lots of problems, especially the human form which is adapted to Earth. You can't abandon Earth. Our fate will always be attached to this planet, most probably. But we can send tendrils into our immediate vicinity, the solar system. I think its the next logical step in evolution. Oh, it's expensive. Why can't we address our problems here with the money? Good question. Let's see how much money there is after reducing our military budget to the level of the summation of China's and Russia's.
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I have the most anti-climactic memory of the moon landing - which is to say, no memory at all. I was in the second grade that year. My family lived in a Detroit suburb. The moon walk happened sometime in the middle of the night. My mother and father tried to wake up the kids so we could watch it together on television, but they were unable to wake me up, so they let me sleep through it. The next day at school, all the kids were talking about it. I had no idea what they were talking about. Oh well. Still a magnificent achievement.
ReplyDeleteGoogle has an extended animation on its landing page - go to www.google.com and click on the Google logo. It's narrated by Mike Collins, the guy who didn't walk on the moon. It's considerably more elaborate and lengthy than their usual little logo animations, and very nice.
Collins was my hero as the guy out there circling the moon with no one paying attention, and the guy who would have had to do a lot of 'splaining if he came home alone. Later, though, he forgot a Hasselblad camera and left it outside after a space walk. Clay feet! But them he was a key guy in the Smithsonian's Air&Space Museum. Hero again.
DeleteJim, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has no memory of the actual moon landing. I had way less excuse than you, I was 18 and just graduated from high school. If it was the middle of the night in Detroit, it was here, too. There would only be an hour difference (western Nebraska is MST). My mom wouldn't have been getting anybody up if my 6 month old baby sister was asleep. I do remember watching footage on the news later.
DeleteMy husband and I had started dating about 3 weeks prior to the lunar landing. He also has no memory of the actual event. He does remember watching the lift-off from earth with his family, and his father's words: "About this time, if it were me, I would be sh**ing my pants!" (My late father-in-law didn't mince words.)
I emailed my eldest son last night and said, "We know exactly what you said 50 years ago tomorrow: 'Cronnnnnnnnnn-KITE!'" He emailed back that by then he was quoting himself because all summer CBS had been breaking into his TV shows so Walter Cronkite could update us on the space program. He says the cussive form of Cronkite's name originated even before the moon shot.
ReplyDeleteNow, of course, space updates come well below the Tweets in the news budget.
After 50 years our son says that, on the whole, he supports the space program, but that in its early days it did nothing to accommodate a 9-year-old's entertainment needs.
I grew up on scifi entertainment. Science Fiction Theater circa 1956. I can still remember the music. Then Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Star Trek. By the time we landed on the moon, I'd already seen all the monsters, extraterrestrials and hot blue scantily clad alien chicks I could handle. Were people disappointed with the Moon landings when compared with the scifi entertainment? Where're the hot blue scantily clad alien chicks?
DeleteIn the fevered imaginations of 14-year-old boys everywhere.
DeleteI was a teenager and the war in Vietnam was dragging on, women were pissed off, and we were in the midst of riots and racial unrest. The lunar landing was just another symbol of American world domination and imperial expansion. Testosterone and rocket toys for white boys in crew cuts.
ReplyDeleteGil Scott Heron pretty much summed up my reaction at the time: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
I have since become enamored of the Mars rover and the photos from there. Different times.
Well, one thing I got from Star Trek was that the future was multiracial. It might start out white, but it would end up human.
DeleteI highly recommend George Takei's graphic novel, They Called Us Enemies.
DeleteBy the way, these last two weeks of the race-baiting Orange Poltroon and his rabid rallies are making me closer to becoming a self-hating Caucasian. I don't see the migrations from other countries as diluting what we're supposed to be. we've lost that already.
DeleteRoy Wood suggests you get a wristband: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WpkbQ7Cnzl4
DeleteJean, I ordered the graphic novel. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend Season Five Twilight Zone episode, "The Encounter", on Netflix if you have it. George Takei is a Japanese-American gardener and tough guy Neville Brand is a Pacific Theater vet. Needless to say, the encounter doesn't go well. Pacific vet Serling gives a grittier take than the usual happy clappy "good war" propaganda of the time. I never saw the episode before Netflix. Probably too frank for TV.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have seen that many times because we own the whole TZ on dvd.
DeleteA friend's mother was locked up with her family in one of the camps Takei writes about. She talked about it, but Takei does a nice job putting it in context.
I had not heard of this before today; but I thought it was poignant and touching: First Communion on the moon. Buzz Aldrin, a Presbyterian, had with him the reserved sacrament of his faith.(I don't know if sacrament is the correct word in the Presbyterian church, but I don't know what the right term would be). Anyway, he had this to say later:
ReplyDelete"...In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.’ I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute Deke Slayton had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly…Eagle’s metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."
I'm sure that the astronauts who made the first moon landing were conscious that they were risking their lives. This could very easily have been Viaticum.
From the blog article in the link:
"NASA kept this secret for two decades. The memoirs of Buzz Aldrin and the Tom Hanks’s Emmy-winning HBO mini-series, From the Earth to the Moon (1998), made people aware of this act of Christian worship 235,000 miles from Earth.
The 2003 Episcopal Church General Convention resolved that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music prepare propers and collects for churchwide observance of the 40th anniversary of the event, July 20, 2009, and to include “The First Communion on the Moon” in The Episcopal Church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts and on the calendar in the Book of Common Prayer for July 20."
Thanks for the link, Katherine. I was unaware of this moving event. Space exploration always had a religious dimension for me. Certainly one of the better activities of man.
DeletePresbyterians do not believe in transubstantiation, but they do believe in the Real Presence in the elements of bread and wine. This is similar to what many Episcopalians believe.
DeleteGenesis, which resonates in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam--and generally in many other religions--is fine by me. It celebrates the majesty of creation.
Taking protestant Christian communion on the moon privately is fine, but broadcasting it? Too sectarian, if you ask me.
Ugh, Madelyn Murray. My mother idolized her.
Probably just as well that they didn't broadcast it, for the reason you mention. But I'm glad that he did it, I'm sure it was a comfort to him, and was fitting to the moment. It was interesting to read about all these years later.
DeleteI also have no memories of the Moon landing.
ReplyDeleteThat summer was spent at our family cabin at the Lake in Pennsylvania where I went every summer of graduate school after the first. Just too hot and humid in Missouri. I was spending time riding my bicycle around the Lake and swimming. We had a TV that picked up Cleveland Stations sometime, but we rarely watched it. The radio only picked up local stations. I used to listen to the Ashtabula station for music and the weather report. They rarely mentioned any national events.
I was very much into science and math as a high school student. By the time was an undergraduate I had become interested first in the humanities and then in the social sciences as a way to integrate my human and scientific interests.
I remember tension and total relief while watching TV in Havertown, PA. I was glued to the set not so much in anticipation of a thrilling achievement as worry for the safety of two human beings further away from human help than anyone had ever been. The landing seemed like it went smoothly but there were moments of peril when the lander overshot its target and Armstrong had to take over manually. It was a gut churner for me.
ReplyDelete"...further away from human help than anyone had ever been." We tend to underestimate the danger the astronauts were in. This was borne home by the Apollo 13 mission. Then the tragedy of the Challenger accident. Not to mention a Russian mission that they never wanted to talk about.
DeleteWe watched a rebroadcast of highlights of the event last night. Amazing how good the footage still was; it was still awesome after all these years. The people looked surprisingly contemporary, clothing hasn't changed all that much. One thing that brought home the passage of time was seeing all the cars lined up alongside the road where people were watching. Of course they were late '60s cars. Like the ones I learned to drive with.
ReplyDelete