The Tie that Binds Us All

Neil Armstrong

It astounds me that there are still people out there who think the July 20th, 1969 Moon Landing was faked. These are probably the same people who think our President faked his birth certificate; women can will their bodies to prevent pregnancy from rape; all gay men are pedophiles; AIDS came from a man having sex with a monkey and Jesus rode a velociraptor around Jerusalem.

Two days after my eighth birthday (yeah, do the math), Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on Earth's moon. Armstrong, along with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, traveled over 220,000 miles, risking their lives to make history. I sat up late to watch the event with my parents. I don't really remember my parents' reaction to it, though I know I was excited and entranced as Armstrong stepped down from the Apollo 11 lander and uttered those iconic words. 

Personally, I would have been terrified to make that trip. Sure, everything had been tested and retested and tested again but there was no guarantee that they would actually make it to the moon. And even less of a guarantee that they would make it home again. Still, the rush of setting foot on an extraterrestrial body for the very first time must have been nothing less than astounding. As Collins orbited above, Armstrong and Aldrin planted a US flag; played golf  and bounded about in the reduced gravity. They must have felt like Superman. I can't even imagine what it was like for them to look back on Earth from that barren landscape. Talk about breathtaking views! 

At the very respectable age of 82, Armstrong joined the Great Majority today, leaving behind him a legacy even greater than those of Columbus, Magellan or Vespucci. In the future annals of Human History, Armstrong will be remembered as the man who led the way in exploring the places we will be forced to go, once our rapacious appetites have depleted Earth's resources. And while I am personally unlikely to have antecedents, I do take some comfort in knowing that the human race may actually have a chance for survival after we have finally, utterly and inevitably destroyed our home planet.

Armstrong's passing also serves as a reminder that we all share the same fate. Rich or poor; famous or anonymous; successes or failures; we all will eventually pass from this life. What lies beyond is anyone's guess (though I'm guessing it's nothing). Of course, Armstrong's feat might have been just a little more exciting had it gone like this:

Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when space travel is more like this:



And, hopefully, not like this:




Rest in Peace, Commander Armstrong. The entire world owes you a debt of gratitude. In a year in which so many pioneers have passed, yours is among the saddest.

More, anon.
Prospero

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The End of Another Era

My parents hadn't even met when the then Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite in October of 1957. The launch stunned and scared Americans, especially when it was revealed the Sputnik launch system was specifically designed to carry nuclear warheads. The launch sparked a Cold War Space Race, which was finally 'won' (in the broadest sense of the word) in July of 1969 when Apollo 11 landed safely on the Moon and Neil Armstrong uttered those now famous (though later learned to be scripted) words: "That's one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind." I had just turned 8 only a few days before (yeah, OK - do the math) and was so excited to watch those grainy images on our console TV. The Universe seemed to hold so much promise...

This coming Monday (barring any problems), the last major US space launch is scheduled to take the Space Shuttle Endeavour ([pictured, right) on its final mission. It is also the final Space Shuttle mission, ever. NASA is retiring the last Shuttle in the fleet after this mission, with no immediate plans for space exploration in the foreseeable future. This saddens me more than you can imagine.

As a fan of Science Fiction for almost as long as I can remember, the end of manned US space exploration leaves me cold. As our own planet's resources dwindle along with the Polar caps, it seems to me more important than ever to push exploration outside our own solar system in search of a planet that could sustain human life. As wrong as some novels and movies have predicted the 21st Century, others have predicted an even more dire 22nd and 23rd Centuries. And it's not that I expect to be around to see any of those potentially dreadful futures, or that I'll have any direct descendants who will, either. But as someone who considers himself a true Secular Humanist, I worry that Humanity itself is in danger of extinction, unless we find somewhere else to go.

Maybe I watched too many Gene Roddenberry shows as a kid. Or maybe I actually believe that someday, we can all agree that the preservation of the Human Race should outweigh the differences we may perceive about one another. I've always been a firm believer that Art and Science are what mark us as superior beings. I just hope we get the chance to prove that. Or maybe I'm just a crazy Pollyanna who thinks we actually deserve to survive as a race. Seeing what we've done to our own planet, I also worry about what we might do to others. Or maybe, just maybe, we'll have learned from our mistakes by then.

More, anon.
Prospero

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