Dreaming of Tranquility
If I could choose one day in all of history to be alive for, to have seen and borne witness to, it would be the twentieth day of July in the year Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Nine.
The Sixties were difficult times…to put it mildly. War in Vietnam. African-Americans fighting (both peaceably and violently) for their civil rights as human beings. A missile crisis that practically brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. You’d need all the fingers on your hands to count the number of major assassinations that took place in the world. Rioting and unrest were rampant all over the globe. But in the midst of these and other difficulties in society, there were other moments where science and technology took us forward even while causing us to question our human condition and our place in the universe. The first human heart transplant. The first working laser. The small, round miracle drug that became known as “The Pill”. London became the site of the first ATM. The computer mouse, Graphical user interfacing, email, and yes, even the first computer networks.
And two human beings walked on the surface of another world.
Putting it like that sounds so much more dramatic, don’t you think? To simply say “the Moon” in that phrase somehow makes it seem like it was just a jaunty stroll through the neighbourhood park. I mean, it’s not like the Moon is all that far away. But it was a very different story in the Sixties. It was the edge of the unexplored, the furthest limit of our capabilities. Our imagination may have been able to take us to the Andromeda Galaxy, but our science could only carry us into Earth orbit. Then, in 1961, the Kennedy Administration set the goal before the United States Congress and the American people: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
It was all politics, of course. Russia, the Communist enemy, had not only been the first to send a piece of human technology into orbit with Sputnik, they had also been the first to put a member of the human race up there as well. The Americans were “falling behind” and the people were feeling it. Alan B. Shepherd and Gus Grissom became the first astronauts--for all of about fifteen minutes apiece. The Russian premier derisively called them “flea hops”. The U.S. was going to have to get its act together and do something dramatic to bring the First World’s morale up. Promising that we would make it to the Moon within the next eight-and-a-half years fit the bill. Now they just had to make it happen. The “Space Race” was on.
The cynics would have us believe that that was all there really was to it: politics was why we went to the Moon, politics is why we cancelled the trips, politics provided the only real meaning to the endeavour. But the cynics ignore the fact that we would have gone eventually, no matter what. After the 1950s and the boom of science fiction films, novels, and television shows (featuring aliens that came to befriend and unite as well as to destroy and conquer), our collective imagination was roaring at full power. That imagination was the fuel that powered our ascent into the stars. It was the same imagination that carried Magellan and Cook across the oceans of this planet, the same drive that took Marco Polo down the Silk Road and into China. The drive to discover, to explore, to see if our imaginations measured up to reality. Somewhere, someone looked up at that silvery grey orb, dotted with craters and patches of white, and whispered under their breath: “One day, we’ll go and see what’s there.” At that moment, the reality of stepping on the surface of an alien world became inevitable; it was just a question of how, when, under what circumstances…and who.
All those questions were answered forty years ago. On July 16, 1969, the single greatest voyage ever undertaken in the history of humankind began on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The quarter-million-mile journey took Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins four days to reach lunar orbit. Once there, Armstrong and Aldrin climbed into the Lunar Module (callsign “Eagle”) and separated from the Command-Service Module, leaving Collins in orbit and touching down in the Sea of Tranquility at 1:17 in the afternoon (EDT). Armstrong’s first transmission to Mission Control: Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. The descent had been unusually prolonged, with the LM actually landing quite a ways from where they were supposed to, and Armstrong’s message brought waves of relief over NASA; they had made it, and made it safely. Only hours later, with one small step, Neil Armstrong turned the dreams of a thousand fantasists and engineers into reality, science fiction into science fact. I say it again: if there was one day in history I could be alive for…
I wish I had the time to reflect more fully on the grandeur and wonder of people walking around on the Moon, but I don’t. One thing is very strongly in my mind, however, something that isn’t always disseminated in the popular histories. Buzz Aldrin transmitted the following message (the whole world was watching at this point): This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way. He then privately took Communion. From my own perspective, he was simply giving credit where credit is due. Much attention is given to our capabilities as a species, and the Moon landings are heralded as an example of our ability to “do anything” we set our minds to and our capacities as being limitless. But others, like me, have faith that while we can achieve great things we do so only by divine guidance and inspiration, what was once called Providence--literally God providing care. When Aldrin took Communion he acknowledged that the skills and talents of engineering and even the imagination that carried us to the Moon all come from our Creator, and that we all owe our own genius to His. That’s what I believe, anyway.
And so our imaginations carry us to even great heights. NASA has put into effect the Constellation program to continue the incredible voyages from the Earth to the Moon, as well as make significant advances in human spaceflight technologies…possibly even taking us to Mars. The thought that I might be able to see the first landings on the Red Planet makes me want to leap into the air for joy. It’s only a dream right now, but everything was only a dream once, even Apollo 11. This July 20, the fortieth anniversary of that momentous event, I will be celebrating Tranquility Base, celebrating the triumph of imagination, and giving thanks in my own way that we are able to explore this amazing universe we live in.
