World class

In his first class review of the details of the Apollo 11 Mission Operation Control Centre, Martyn Mclaughlin rightly stressed how a sense of collective responsibility over the project was forged (Perspective, 17 July).

He illustrated the importance of how relatively young minds applied technology to what President John F Kennedy had described as “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which Man has ever embarked”.

Was the energy devoted and the cost of the moon landing endeavour worthwhile? In a famous speech at Rice University stadium in september 1962, Kennedy had emphasised that the $5400 million( in that year’s prices) being spent on the space programme was still less than what the American public were spending on cigarettes and cigars.

It is difficult to read the text and avoid the conclusion, however, that the bold effort he was encouraging was stirred by power politics and a determination by the United States to be the first.

Seventeen months earlier Yuri Gagarin had enhanced the prestige of the former Soviet Union by becoming the first person to orbit the earth in space. The United States had to find a way of showing that it was not falling behind. Boldness was required to send a manned rocket 240,000 miles away, to plan the equipment,

the propulsion, the guidance, the control, the communications, the survival techniques, and return that rocket and its crew to earth. That was done and it was a momentous achievement.

It has been soured over the years by the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the ignominy of Watergate in the 1970s, by only limited steps forward in tackling poverty, race discrimination, health care and environmental pollution.

The question will always be asked as to why the sophisticated planning of the moon landing cannot be replicated to solve more pressing problems. We should still rejoice that so many thousands of people came together against formidable odds to achieve what many believed was impossible.

BOB TAYLOR Shiel Court, Glenrothes