A reminder of what we can achieve
You had to be there 50 years ago, and I was. As a young reporter for a TV station in Houston, I frequently visited NASA (“The Space Base,” we dubbed it), met many of the astronauts and reported on their exploits.
Along with people from around the world, I watched the lunar landing on TV on July 20, 1969, fulfilling President John F. Kennedy’s goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of that decade.
A new, three-part PBS documentary, “Chasing the Moon,” recalls the American space program, which followed the Russian launch of the first satellite in 1957. It is a brilliant film, created and directed by Robert Stone, and a useful reminder for the generations born since then of what a united America can achieve.
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite makes that point when he says, “It shows what the richest nation in history can do when it puts its mind to it.” (If you missed the broadcast, you can find the series at pbs.org.)
About Apollo 11, a reporter says, “It is like seeing Columbus sail out of port.”
Jack Lousma, one of the astronauts who followed and later became a close friend, was the CAPCOM recipient of the “Houston, we’ve had a problem here” message from Apollo 13 and the pilot for Skylab 3 in 1973. He also commanded the third space shuttle mission in 1982.
I asked for his remembrances of that time and about the legacy of America’s most famous spaceflight.
“Apollo was a bright light, a ray of hope, a force for good during the Vietnam War controversy with its riots, civil unrest, demonstrations, violence, turmoil, burning draft cards,” Lousma said.
“Apollo unified the world for a short time,” he said. “I recall photographs of people in many nations watching TV during the landing ... a worldwide sense of ‘oneness.’ They were not just watching; they seemed part of our team, as if this were a victory for all earthlings, not just for the U.S. We were vicariously representing each one of them . ...
“It made us proud to be Americans; it set a standard for excellence; it established a baseline for advanced exploration and discovery.”
One story in particular adds to the many illustrations of the power of fame the astronauts had.
On a commercial flight years later, I sat across the aisle from Annie and John Glenn, he the first American to orbit the Earth and at the time a Democratic senator from Ohio. “Apollo 13” was shown to the passengers. At the end of the film, passengers approached Glenn for his autograph. I said, “John, you know they don’t want your signature because you’re a senator, right?” He laughed and said, “Don’t I know it?”
In today’s divided nation, it should be more than an exercise in nostalgia to revisit those exciting years when space really was “the final frontier” and America came to lead the way in exploring it.