Queen's message to the moon on show to mark 50 years since Apollo 11
While the world awaited the historic launch of Apollo 11 half a century ago this week, Nasa invited many heads of state and government, including the Queen, to send messages to the moon.
Buckingham Palace may not have been immediately enthusiastic, however, apparently thinking that any such message could be “a gimmick”, records at the National Archives suggest.
The government was keen. “Their idea of emphasising the international aspect of the first men on the moon is something we want to support,” wrote John Graham, principal private secretary to the then foreign secretary, Michael Stewart. He added that “it would look churlish” to decline.
The Queen’s then private secretary, Michael Adeane, writing on Buckingham Palace headed notepaper, recorded the Queen had approved the suggested text of a message. But, he added: “Her Majesty agrees that this idea is a gimmick and it is not the sort of thing she much enjoys doing but she certainly would not wish to appear churlish by refusing an invitation which is so obviously well intentioned.”
The Queen’s reaction is revealed by Dr Juliette Desplat, the head of modern overseas, intelligence and security records at the National Archives, in a blog to be published on its website on Thursday, in the 50th anniversary week of Apollo 11’s launch.
The Queen’s message was sent, along with those from figureheads from 72 other nations, on a tiny disc carried by the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men to walk on the moon on 21 July 1969. It read: “On behalf of the British people, I salute the skills and courage which have brought man to the moon. May this endeavour increase the knowledge and well-being of mankind.”
British reaction to the space race and lunar landings is captured in several documents, with a small selection on show at the National Archives in Kew, west London, to mark the 50thanniversary.
Desplat’s research showed that Downing Street debated whether the then prime minister, Harold Wilson, should have mentioned Britain’s “modest” contribution to that historic moment in his statement for the BBC’s TV broadcast. A briefing paper discussed how the spacecraft’s fuel cells were based on “the Bacon cells”, a fuel cell technology pioneered by the British scientist Francis Thomas Bacon. It added that the “water-cooled undergarments of the astronauts’ space suits were developed from designs made by the Royal [Aircraft] Establishment, Farnborough” and the “television coverage within Europe of the Apollo 11 mission [was] being achieved through the Post Office earth station in Goonhilly, in Cornwall”.
In the end, it was decided not to mention any of the above. “The cumulative effect of these British contributions is not insignificant, but, seen in context, it might seem disproportionate for them to be mentioned in the PM’s broadcast”, the briefing note concluded.
The archives include an apology from the then UK ambassador to the US, John Freeman, for missing the historic Apollo 11 launch. He admitted his absence was a “mistake”, but explained that having witnessed the launch of Apollo 10 at Cape Kennedy just two months previously, “a further visit so soon afterwards would be a pure pleasure jaunt”.
The astronauts brought moon dust back with them. Four tiny pieces, embedded in clear plastic and mounted in a display with a miniature union flag, were given by Richard Nixon to Wilson. But the question of what to do with them taxed several prime ministers.
Wilson sent the gift to the Science Museum, and it later went on a nationwide tour. By the time it landed back at No 10, Edward Heath was apparently “unable to identify a sufficiently public spot … aesthetically suitable” for the display, according to records seen by Desplat.
The dust spent several years in a Downing Street cupboard, to be rediscovered by accident in 1979, during Margaret Thatcher’s tenure. An offer of a loan to the Science Museum was declined in 1985, on the grounds that the museum had plenty of other moon rocks and “it was not really a very exciting exhibit”.
American space success came after the Soviets had launched Sputnik 2 in November 1957, with the dog Laika, a stray Moscow mongrel, on board, though she died in orbit. In April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit around Earth, returning a hero.
When Gagarin visited the UK in July 1961, while much of Germany was still under Soviet occupation, such was the rapturous UK welcome that the British ambassador to West Germany, Sir Christopher Steel, reported: “The average German finds it alarming that the British, who are supposed to be reserved and politically mature, should rave over a Bolshevik on a propaganda mission, even if he is a hero.”
The then prime minister, Harold Macmillan, noted: “I think Sir C Steel might point out to the Germans that Gagarin’s reception was nothing like that which the little dog would have got.”