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Unless you have been stuck under a rock, you probably know that Neil Armstrong died yesterday. In July 1969, I, like so many millions of others, watched as he made “One small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.” (I am using the words as he said he spoke them rather than how we heard them as I can fully appreciate how there could be a comm drop – as should anyone who has had a phone drop the occasional word.)
That summer, I was 17 years old and about to start my senior year in high school. Vietnam was still raging; Richard Nixon had been president for only a few months, and I had all my life and the world in front of me. The USSR had launched Sputnik just 12 years earlier. Newspapers were soon providing the nightly times when Sputnik and then the follow-on US satellites would be visible in the night sky so that we could go out and watch them move rapidly across the sky.
Coach Bill wrote this diary yesterday at MyFDL on how many of us learned about the space program in school:
My earliest and most vivid memories of elementary school were when we would gather together in a single classroom and watch a rocket take off with a man aboard. I grew up with the Mercury Seven Astronauts, the Gemini program and eventually the Apollo Missions that culminated on July 20 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped off a ladder onto the moon.
In 12 short years, we as humans went from the first man-made objects in space to a man on the moon. This was a celebration of humanity at least as much as a celebration of “American Exceptionalism.”
As adults, we read and watched The Right Stuff. Now, it has been almost 40 years since the last Apollo mission. We have seen the Challenger and Columbia disasters and the end of the Space Shuttle program.
So where are we going? Not just as a nation but as a human race? The author Kim Stanley Robinson visited Firedoglake’s Book Salon yesterday to talk with folks about his latest novel 2312. One of the things that makes me love “hard” sci-fi is the inherent optimism that we will escape at least out to our solar system if not the whole universe. Let’s hope our leaders can show some of the same imagination as shown by President Kennedy when he vowed to put a man on the moon within the decade. Otherwise, we have the situation Mr Pierce describes:
For at least a time, there literally was only one other person in the history of man who knew what Armstrong knew — how that sandy soil feels when you walk on it, the exact places where the shadows fall, the precise geometry of the mountains of the moon. Today, there are only eight of them left, all of them in their 70′s. What will happen when the last of them dies? It’s very likely that there will not be a living human being who knows what Neil Armstrong knew. It will all be for videotape and digital libraries, for historians and, if we’re very lucky, for poets, as well. But there will be nobody alive who actually knows. Not a single one of our fellow humans, anywhere on the Earth.
I went and looked at the moon last night.
And because I can:
Cross posted from Just A Small Town Country Boy by Richard Taylor
44 Comments
Thanks, and I felt watched by the moon. I’d feel better about the moon if our waste products all had come back with us, something we now know more about and do in parks.
Nice post and reminder an another era. When I look back at that time (I’m a couple of years younger than you) and recall growing up in CA and the SF Bay area, I’m struck by the remarkable events that took place and how fortunate I was to have lived through. The mid 50s through mid 70s may have been witnessed to a time of the greatest social and technology change in our history. In some ways it was a great national awakening. The passing of Neil Armstrong is a historical marker reminding us of another time and place, of an America that could do and did. Telstar brough a smile to my face as it triggered memories of the original tune and my youth. By the time I was draft age the Vietnam War was over (though the draft was still on and enlisted in the AF to avoid it – my draft notice came in Basic training – LOL). Thanks Neil and to all those that made it happen. You were true heroes by taking risks in tackling so many unknowns and showing us greatness of the human spirit.
The milestone people in our lives are passing away. They are ten to twenty years ahead of us old hippies. It pulls me back to my youth and pushes me forward at the same time. Exquisite Entropy.
Yep. It is the nature of the world but it sure is a shame we find ourselves unable to sustain the most basic things that gave us those legacies and milestones.
I am gobstruck by the lack of understanding and meanness that dictates our lives now. NASA is seen as science and must be controlled by the crazy ass Xtian “right to life if you are a fetus” group.
I cannot believe we actually went to the moon, not once but over 15 times! Not because I am a crank or conspiracy cook, but because my society can't get motivated to do a single goddamn thing besides making the wealthiest citizens ever more awash in gold and dollars; a favor they repay in kind with contempt and dismissal.
15X ? I don’t think so.
i was at yankee stadium with my dad for old timers day; they stopped the game and played god bless america when they landed
Yeah, if Apollo 11 was the first to touch down on the moon and Apollo 17 the last, that means 6 actually landed with a total of 12 men walking on the moon (always remembering that Apollo 13 did not make it)
I don’t recall what I was doing as they landed; probably working at the men’s clothing store I worked off and on through high school and college but do remember going out that evening and hanging out with my friends before making it home about 10 and watching the walk with my mom.
I remember it was hot as blazes in New Orleans, and lots of people were talking about the power of Moon punch….’cuz it’s NO, you know?
An excellent thought! Captures the essence of my thinking exactly. Well phrased and concise.
Ah yes, the Moon Landing – amazing day that was. One with all the world that day.
Here’s a BBC bio on Armstrong.
And here’s EB White from 1969
Great piece…thanks
Love this post. And “Telstar” by the Ventures to boot! This post recalls a very distinct memory of a discussion I had in class with my eighth grade history teacher in 1962 or early 1963. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about but I raised my hand and said JFK had set a goal of landing a man on the moon by 1970. He told me and the class I was wrong and it would never happen. (It didn’t occur to me that he might have been a Republican.)
I remember that night as well. I was at my best friend’s house, and I know her family was all watching with us. Her mama died this week, and as with other events I notice the timing and hope that maybe at the big reception in the sky, her mama got a chance to shake hands with him, or that their spirits crossed paths.
I am pretty sure we went out and looked at the moon too.
It sure seemed to be a good thing to do.
I just went out, walked around a little until I could see it then stopped and looked up at it for a couple of minutes but that was enough.
When I decided to write this post, the music choice was pretty much a no brainer. :})
Although I was only in the 4th grade or so when Kennedy made the speech, I do recall a lot of skepticism about the promise. Don’t forget that at the time, the USSR was demonstrably ahead of us having launched Sputnik first and having had Gugarin as the first human in space and orbit
You are a dreamer, dakine.
We can but hope.
We were a cleaner, fresher people back then. We had faith in ourselves. Or maybe it was just that I was much younger and it seemed that way.
There she is. Aloft in our sky and our dreams. She cares not about our swoons over her beauty. Slowly she moves further and further from us. In space and time.
Bravery now takes the form of cutting programs that help the poorest Americans.
It was a wonderful moment. I was living in Paris at the time, doing research at the Archives Nationales. I’d spent the weekend at Honfleur and the Normandy beaches. I got back to the Cité Universitaire just in tme to see the landing. We were all awed. It seemed so unreal, them bouncing around at low gravity. And it did seem at the time like a giant step for mankind and not a giant step for the United States.
What a nice post. Funny that those days now seem so innocent (I am the same age as you.) At the time, the dirt and shame of the perpetual war against Vietnam made me think my nation was monstrous.
Especially sweet touch that you included the Telstar bit of music. That was one of my all time favorite pieces, right up there with hits from Simon And Garfunkel and the Beatles.
It may well have been the final moment of innocence, coming in the year between the MLK/RFK assassinations and Chicago police riots in ’68 and Kent and Jackson State killings in ’70
I usually have no idea what headlines are on the newspapers, but today when I was at the store, I glanced a headline that read;
A Giant Loss For Mankind.
Thanks for the post, Dakine. We were indeed younger and more hopeful in those days.
This post made me get up, walk away from the computer, go outside and look at the moon. This is because it reminded me of the night of the moon landing back in the summer of 1969.
I was 15 and the world held for me so much promise and so much fear. I watched transfixed, waiting in front of the grainy old family black-and-white for what seemed like forever until they cleared Neil Armstrong to step outside of the capsule and plant that first step on the moon.
Of course I remember it like it was yesterday, but what I remember more is stepping outside when it was finished, walking out into the front yard and looking up at the moon. And then turning my head first to the left and then to the right to see down the street half a dozen others, standing in their yards, looking up at the moon. What an odd and almost holy sensation – to see those others, and know exactly the thoughts in their head, the sense of wonder in their hearts. I was too young to understand the realization, much less articulate it, of being one with everyone else in this fleeting world.
I understand it now, and so like dakine, tonight I once again looked up at the moon.
Woo-hoo…! Occupy Hilo made our local rightwing rag front paged our Light Brigade effort…!
the idea of a project such as putting a man on the moon in today’s republican Dystopia US is so laughable its sad. We have let republicans turn us into the “can’t do nation”, unless of course its some inane religious crusade to abuse people, more corporate welfare for the wealthiest, or illegally invading nations and mass murdering non-white people.
Having grown up in a time of the race to the moon, alongside flower power and the era of civil disobedience, today’s US is a pathetic shadow of what once was.
Escapism is a fun release, but “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon before I was born, and I grew up hearing of the breathtaking race and dreaming of one day being on the Moon.
Keep your spirits up, folks … our best days are ahead !
Great post, Sir !
10 to 20 ahead? Try 7!
I do remember that landing but for the life of me, I don’t know what I was doing Jul 21 1969. It was a Monday so I probably was at work and listening there.
I don’t think I was prouder anytime before or since to know what we did, and that the company for which I worked then figured significantly in that endeavor.
‘m reminded of the endo of the Poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold:
“And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Not exactly what I came to believe I would be witnessing 43 years later.
When everything here and now is dust, the stuff left on the moon will still be there, the last of our artifacts.
On the night of 20 July 1969, one of the tall buildings on the Charles River in Cambridge Mass. left two columns of office lights on making a 10 story high number eleven (for Apollo 11).
Nice
The flag planted by Armstrong is not still standing.
And the stars and strips on the others have turned to white.
No evidence it was America that landed on the moon.
http://gizmodo.com/5930450/all-the-american-flags-on-the-moon-are-now-white
We visited the moon mission control room at Cape Canaveral and it was astonishingly primitive by today’s standards–no computer screens! How is it possible that mankind dared to travel to the moon using this comparatively primitive technology and has not attempted a moon voyage for the last 40 years? Why have we backtracked in space exploration, confining our manned space program to orbital flights? Surely, with our vastly developed technology since the 1960s and 70s, moon exploration is far more feasible and safer. There is a hidden story here that I have wondered about for a long time.
This is my guess. During the moon landings, the Powers That Be realized that manned space exploration was bringing the human race much closer together, causing us to more deeply and universally recognize our common destiny. And this is why they stopped it.
The aliens said, No, no, no humans, you only going to destroy one planet.
It is natural that we are inspired by these achievements, but it is simplistic to take them out of context. The “moon shot” was as much a product of the cold war as it was a great goal for American innovation. Dakine01 made reference to the Vietnam War and Sputnik which serve as background. While there is no denying the amazing scientific advancements and technical breakthroughs from the space program that have enriched civilization and have given the nation unity of purpose, there is also an ugly dark side: the space program was an essential laboratory for the development of military technology and weapons. These new capabilities were put to use in Vietnam and in later undeclared wars and military actions that many of us see as gigantic blots on our country’s history.
Space travel by humans seems to me largely a waste of effort and money, and I think it serves a PR purpose more than anything else. We have learned far more through unmanned probes — programs which are more efficient in their use of resources. One of these, Curiosity, is currently working extremely well on the surface of Mars.
We must never forget that technology is a double-edged sword which has brought benefits but also has wrought death and destruction on a vast scale. The significant question in my mind is how to maximize the former while minimizing the latter. Perhaps the answer is that some technologies should never be pursued, and others should be abandoned or regulated if they cause more harm than good. Nuclear energy and weapons (which go hand in hand and include “dirty” bombs with depleted uranium which we may have used in Iraq), is an example.
We need to develop a conscientious framework for the development of technology, so that it doesn’t end up destroying people’s lives, livelihoods or the environment. I also would rather see much more emphasis on teaching and supporting the arts and humanities, instead of this overwhelming emphasis we have on science and technology.
As these wonderful gentlemen begin to pass away, it’s only a matter of time before the conspiracy theorists tell us that the moon landing was broadcast from a studio in California and we didn’t really get there.
The conspiracy theory already exists. I’ve heard it numerous times over the years. It’s only a matter of time before the low information party gets hold of the theory and purports it as fact.
After all, it was the proposal of a Democratic POTUS, wasn’t it? It can’t possibly have any value. [/snark]
EXACTLY my sentiment. I did not expect to find it in the first comment.
The recent landing on Mars, in which the first thing done, even before the robot essential to the mission landed, was boost the vehicle rocket away from the site to crash. Making throwing trash the very first activity. Hooray. And it reminded me of all the junk they have left on the moon even before Armstrong got there. Ain’t progress just great.