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Wednesday, July 17, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
A giant leap
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
<That9s one small step for
(a) man, one giant leap for
mankind.=
4 Neil Armstrong,
Commander, Apollo 11
July 20 marks the 50th
anniversary of one of the
most remarkable moments
in human history. Astronaut
Neil Armstrong opened the
hatch of the lunar landing
module, Eagle, and stepped
out onto the surface of the
Moon.
The moon landing, given
the mission code of Apollo
11, was an extraordinary feat
of engineering, science and
aviation, a breathtakingly
risky undertaking that grew
out of Cold War competition
with the Soviet Union, which
had its own aggressive space
program.
Exploration has been part
of the American makeup
since the days when fur
trade companies sought
a Northwest Passage to
China and since captains
Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark led an expedi-
tion across the continent to
determine just what President
Thomas Jefferson had pur-
chased from the French.
P r e s i d e n t J o h n F.
Kennedy consciously evoked
the American frontier spirit
in his acceptance speech for
the 1960 Democratic nomi-
nation for President of the
United States:
<We stand today on the
edge of a New Frontier 4
the frontier of the 1960s, the
frontier of unknown oppor-
tunities and perils, the fron-
tier of unfilled hopes and
unfilled threats. ... Beyond
that frontier are uncharted
areas of science and space,
unsolved problems of peace
and war, unconquered prob-
lems of ignorance and preju-
dice, unanswered questions
of poverty and surplus.=
The New Frontier of
space beckoned as his admin-
istration stepped into a space
race that had been hot since
the Soviets sent up a success-
ful satellite called Sputnik in
1957. In 1962, Kennedy set
the goal of landing a man on
the Moon by the end of the
decade:
<We set sail on this new
sea because there is new
knowledge to be gained, and
new rights to be won, and
they must be won and used
for the progress of all peo-
ple. For space science, like
nuclear science and all tech-
nology, has no conscience
of its own. Whether it will
become a force for good or
ill depends on man, and only
if the United States occupies
a position of pre-eminence
can we help decide whether
this new ocean will be a sea
of peace or a new terrify-
ing theater of war. I do not
say that we should or will
go unprotected against the
hostile misuse of space any
more than we go unprotected
against the hostile use of land
or sea, but I do say that space
can be explored and mastered
without feeding the fires of
war, without repeating the
mistakes that man has made
in extending his writ around
this globe of ours.
<There is no strife, no
prejudice, no national con-
flict in outer space as yet.
Its hazards are hostile to us
all. Its conquest deserves
the best of all mankind, and
its opportunity for peaceful
cooperation may never come
again. But why, some say, the
Moon? Why choose this as
our goal? And they may well
ask, why climb the highest
mountain? Why, 35 years
ago, fly the Atlantic? Why
does Rice play Texas?
<We choose to go to the
Moon! We choose to go to
the Moon...We choose to go
to the Moon in this decade
and do the other things,
not because they are easy,
but because they are hard;
because that goal will serve
to organize and measure
the best of our energies and
skills, because that challenge
is one that we are willing to
accept, one we are unwill-
ing to postpone, and one we
intend to win, and the others,
too.=
Kennedy, of course, did
not live to see the fulfill-
ment of this vow; his slay-
ing in November 1963 was
a harbinger of a tumultuous
decade that would divide
American society and cul-
ture in ways that still affect
us today.
But through all of the
turmoil of the Civil Rights
era, Vietnam and ten-
sions with China and the
Soviet Union that seemed
to threaten nuclear annihila-
tion, the NASA space pro-
gram soldiered on. Through
deadly setbacks, the Apollo
program moved steadily
toward its goal and on July
16, the Apollo 11 crew of
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin
and Michael Collins sat in a
capsule atop a giant ballistic
missile and were blasted into
space.
1969 was a wild, weird
and terrible year 4 but for a
few days in July, just about
everyone could stand for
a moment in awe at man-
kind9s ability to achieve great
things. A giant leap, indeed.
We don9t send astronauts
to the moon anymore. There
PHOTO COURTESY NASA
Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph of Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon.
are a lot of reasons for that,
but the cost and a lack of any
unifying purpose in doing
so probably top the list. As
Clara Moskowitz reported a
decade ago at space.com:
<During the Apollo years
NASA9s budget was almost
five percent of the federal
budget. Now, it9s less than
one percent.
8We understand the tech-
nologies that will be neces-
sary, but it9s going to take an
investment to do that,9 said
Roger Launius, space history
curator at the Smithsonian9s
National Air and Space
Museum. 8That9s the rub.9
<During the 1960s, many
Americans felt the expense of
Apollo was justified because
of its importance to national
security during the Cold War.
Today, some people question
whether human space explo-
ration is as valuable.
<8There are not compel-
ling publicly held reasons
for doing this,9 Launius said.
8Without a rationale that
everybody understands and
can buy into, it9s a very hard
sell to get the resources to do
it.9=
It9s hard to say whether
taking another shot at the
Moon or landing people on
Mars is worth the massive
expenditure of resources.
Maybe we9ve got enough to
do right here on Earth. But
it9s hard not to view the foot-
age of that signal moment
50 years ago and not feel
an ache for a grand goal
and effort <that will serve
to organize and measure
the best of our energies and
skills, because that challenge
is one that we are willing to
accept, one we are unwill-
ing to postpone, and one we
intend to win.=
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