Lessons from the year of the moon
On May 25, 1961, four months into his presidency, John F. Kennedy made a startling promise: the United States would send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth “before this decade is out.”
It seemed preposterous. In space, the U.S. was behind the Soviet Union, which had launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first satellite, in 1957. A month before Kennedy’s speech, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit Earth.
The Soviets were making the heavens a theatre of the Cold War. Kennedy’s commitment was less about the benefits of science or the romance of discovery. Space was realpolitik; it was a strategic decision, one of the most consequential of his administration.
Kennedy’s promise was audacious: The United States had a modest aerospace program, and here he was, telling Americans that they would reach the moon. And that it would happen by 1970. It was as if JFK were Babe Ruth famously stepping up to the plate in 1932, pointing his bat at centre field and hitting that next pitch into the bleachers. Ruth’s “called shot” was Kennedy’s moon shot.
Eight years later, after spending billions and suffering deadly reversals, the United States landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. It was a triumph of ingenuity, technology and daring, a great national project unthinkable today.
Now, entrepreneurs talk about colonizing the moon, Mars and beyond, but space travel no longer seizes the American imagination. Still, long after the defeat of Communism, the moon offers us lessons in humility and humanity.
As Basil Hero writes lyrically in The Mission of a Lifetime, the 24 astronauts who went to the moon thought deeply about their journey. An award-winning former journalist, Hero interviewed the surviving 12.
He offers an engaging, important meditation on space, drawing lessons on patriotism, leadership and courage — what we have come to call “the right stuff.” These men inspire us, as only those who have slipped Earth’s gravitational pull can, on addressing the common good, the unity of mankind and the fragility of our planet in the age of climate change.
In his timely story, Hero recalls a watershed: the voyage of Apollo 8, the first craft to orbit the moon, at Christmas 1968. As they drew closer in their capsule, the astronauts found the moon brown, dry, cratered, lifeless and forbidding.
And then, on their fourth orbit, a glowing sphere came into view, like a shining marble rising slowly, gloriously, above the lunar horizon. This image would change their perception of the universe, and ours, too. It was Earth.
As Hero explains, seeing Earth was breathtaking for those in space. We had never seen our planet that way before because we had never been that far before. We had always looked up, at the moon, not down, at the Earth. And there it was, dazzling, incandescent, precious, “a kind of cosmic lighthouse fifty times brighter than the moon,” Hero writes.
The photograph that the astronauts took of Earth, called Earthrise, fostered a new popular consciousness, framing the early environmental movement in the 1960s. It suggested a world without boundary, ethnicity or history.
At his most eloquent, Hero evokes astronauts dreaming of the moon and discovering Earth. They returned newly conscious of the threats to the planet. Said one: “We went to the moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.”
There is much in The Mission of a Lifetime about the U.S. space odyssey, especially character, collegiality, faith, and the future of space exploration. But what comes through, a half-century later, is a rushing sense of wonder at the unknown universe and the urgency of forging a common understanding. “There are no passengers on spaceship Earth,” said Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian philosopher. “We are all crew.”
Observing the half-century anniversary of reaching the moon invites us to revisit Earth, recognizing the mortal threat of global warming.
It’s in our hands now, really, saving the planet. It’s a challenge to our survival infinitely greater than reaching the moon, and we will have to treat it with the same resolve. “Here on Earth,” said President Kennedy, “God’s work must truly be our own.”