I was not alive for the Apollo 11 landing.
So I don’t remember seeing it on tv in real time. But I remember a book about the Apollo rockets we had when I was very small that I read until it was worn out, so I was clearly impressed as a child. As an adult, I dropped the ball on attending any of the 50thanniversary celebratory events – it was too damn hot, and I was tired. So consider this post my feeble, late addition to the festivities.
For the past week I’ve been listening to documentaries on the Apollo program (hey, work is the only time I have to do this – I can’t watch, I can only listen). Fifty years on the technology still blows me away – an entire industry and science of space travel had to be invented within 10(!) years to meet Kennedy’s deadline. The spacesuits alone are masterpieces of high tech and high craftsmanship. But it’s not just the inventiveness, tenacity, and ambition of everyone involved in the Apollo missions that thrills me, but also the incredible amount of goodwill the successful landing generated around the world.
Every documentary includes people from the astronauts’ publicity tours congratulating them because “we did it” – as in “we”, the entire human species, succeeded. And despite clichés about how humbling it is to see the smallness and frailty of our little blue planet from outside, for one shining moment it felt like the whole of humanity was in something together.
Human beings do a lot of stupid, mean-spirited, destructive things, but Apollo wasn’t one of them. Arguably it was a high point in human science and ingenuity on a global scale, and a high point of international regard for the United States in particular.
I’m saddened that the 50th anniversary of this achievement should occur when the reputation of the United States is so poor, and that paranoia and “Google University” arrogant thought prevails over informed critical thinking. We’re better than this.
