Group works to save space history
Few human accomplishments approach the scale of Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon.
Yet as of this moment, nearly 50 years later, the old house down the street may have more legal protection than Tranquility Base where the Eagle landed. Protection has not been of consequence, since the quartermillionmile trip has not been duplicated by a crew since 1972.
But with private companies joining NASA in space exploration and other countries planning lunar expeditions, the landing sites not only of the Apollo missions, but of unmanned probes from the space race, could be threatened with harm, no matter how unintentional.
A New Canaan organization, formed by a husband and wife team, is working to preserve those sites, through For All Moonkind.
Founded by Timothy and Michelle Hanlon, the organization has been granted permanent observer status from the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and as the “One Small Step” Act pending before Congress. On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee approved “One Small Step.”
“Like the bootprint it seeks to protect, this bill is one small step that has the potential to turn into a giant leap for the protection of our history, and therefore, the sustainability and success of our future in space,” Michelle Hanlon said. “Now, you, the readers should also take a small step — go call and/or email Senators Blumenthal and Murphy and tell them to support this important legislation.”
For All Moonkind will discuss its efforts to preserve the Apollo sites on the moon during a talk at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society on Wednesday at 7 p.m. There is no charge for admission.
Timothy Hanlon has a background in marketing, Michelle, a corporate attorney.
Timothy recalls July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong made “one giant leap.” He was at camp, and remembers the Scoutmasters gathering campers to watch the event. Photos in publications put out by For All Moonkind tend to be black and white, because that’s how he remembers it.
The interest in space has been passed down. One son, Ned, is a 2017 graduate of the United State Naval Academy, and on June 24 will launch his third satellite into space. Younger son, Henry, is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is in the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, and has written code for satellites.
It was at a conference with young space pioneers, where Ned made a presentation, that the Hanlons saw the beginnings of a booming new economy.
“It was young entrepreneurs,” Timothy said. “I saw the internet in 1995 with fistfuls of money.”
Michelle saw business moving into the lawless vacuum of space, and quit corporate law to attend McGill University in Montreal, one of the premiere schools for space law. Her father was a follower of the space program, which she remembers from her youth.
And she found a gap in the existing law that the Hanlons say puts historic landing sites of both crewed and uncrewed missions at risk as more and more countries and businesses plan lunar landings. She’s shown it to other experts in space law, who despite being skeptical agree once reading the existing wording.
As written, current law requires nations respect the property of the nation that put it into space, and make an effort to do no harm to it.
Michelle Hanlon’s concern is the effect of the landing close to Tranquility Base, where Armstrong took mankind’s first steps on another celestial body. The exhaust could obscure the footprints, damage the lander, and forever change the site of one of mankind’s greatest triumphs.
She envisions protections for the historic sites, such as a dome so visitors to the moon could view that first landing site. With partners including architectural schools, ideas such as domes over the landing sites, cable cars to give lunar visitors a view from above, and walls made from the lunar surface itself are being proposed to protect the history. Another idea envisions landing pads, the lunar equivalent of an airport, giving the next generation to land on the Moon a permanent place to take off and land, protecting the areas where explorers tread.
The Hanlons attend conferences around the world, with scientists, diplomats and at least two who have walked on the moon, Buzz Aldrin of that first landing on Apollo 11, and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, a geologist who explored the lunar surface on Apollo 17, man’s last crewed visit to date.
They have proposed the “One Small Step” Act, intended to protect sites significant to the history of space exploration, which is now before Congress
COPUOS was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1959, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite, to “govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development.”
Michelle Hanlon says the landing sites are akin to the pyramids in Egypt, monuments to human achievement that deserve permanent protection.
“A thousand years from now,” she said, “people should look at the footprints.”