The Moon: AWE, HOPE AND SKEPTICISM ON PLANET EARTH

As Apollo 11 hurtled through the heavens to land two Americans on the moon, it seemed as if all mankind were kin. Whether in stilt-supported houses over the canals of Bangkok or by the azure swimming pools of Beverly Hills, families sat mesmerized before the flickering history unfolding on their television screens. Along London’s Piccadilly and Tokyo’s Ginza, crowds and traffic thinned as the launch began. In West Berlin, as in South Nyack, N.Y., there was a rare sense of camaraderie. Strangers on the street were united by the universal question: “How are they doing?” It seemed, as Tennyson wrote more than a century ago, “One far-off divine event/To which the whole creation moves.”

In the U.S., East Coast workers either rushed to the office early or stayed home until midmorning to watch the liftoff; across the country, Californians climbed out of bed at dawn to agonize through the countdown.

Most people seemed as awed by the colossal scale of the undertaking as they were baffled by its complexity. To many, the long series of space shots had become routine—until the moment that the mission of Apollo 11 finally struck home. Across the land, at the instant of launch and landing, women dabbed their eyes and men blinked back their emotions. In Alaska, Newspaper Publisher Larry Fanning observed: “Intellectually and emotionally, man is incapable of parsing out the stunning implications of this fantastic voyage.”

Despite the near-perfect record of Apollo space flights, many feared the perils of the journey. In houses of worship around the U.S., clerics and laymen prayed for the astronauts’ success. At St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church in Boston, the four brothers of Patricia Finnegan Collins, wife of Astronaut Mike Collins, heard Father John Schatzel read from Genesis: “I will be with you and protect you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land.” In Neil Armstrong’s home town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, the Rev. Herman J. Weber prayed at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ: “Oh thou great architect of the universe, it is only because thy universe is an embodiment of order and harmony upon which we can rely, that we are able to explore with sincere faith the vast imponderables of space and the moon’s hidden mystery.”

Americans were gratified that the U.S. had won the race with the Soviet Union to land men on the moon. Said Patricia Lepis of Brooklyn: “It’s the greatest thing that could happen to this country. It’s definitely an American triumph.” Houston Cameraman Ron Bozman argued: “The moon is there and we Americans have to get there first.” More often, the moon mission evoked an exhilarating sense of human solidarity and potential. “I believe it’s man’s greatest achievement to date,” said Barry Davidoff, 16, a student at the Bronx High School of Science. “It’s a triumph for everybody.”

Almost universally, Americans agreed that the moon voyage was a transcendent achievement—but that domestic demands are equally pressing. As John Furst, a University of Pennsylvania student, put it: “I was very proud when I saw that spaceship and the men with the flags on their sleeves. But I must confess that I also thought of all the people who live in the ghettos. This is their flag, too. The flag may be flying on the moon, but it is also flying in their neighborhoods, where there are poverty, disease and rats.”

Opposition to an expensive space program runs especially high among most of the nation’s blacks. Black Panther Leader Eldridge Cleaver, a fugitive from justice in California, turned up in Algiers to denounce the moon shot as “a circus to distract people’s minds from the real problems, which are here on the ground.” “I think it’s a waste of money,” said Arvis Gilmore, a black typist at the Encyclopaedia Britannica in Chicago. “There’s poverty all over the place, and yet we spend billions of dollars going to the moon.”

Is the Moon White?

To the argument that the billions for the space program could have been more usefully spent on the nation’s myriad domestic ills, Brandeis Political Scientist John Roche—once President Johnson’s resident intellectual—replies that the fundamentally conservative U.S. Congress would never have showered such sums on the problems of America. Adds Stanford’s Felix Bloch, a Nobel laureate in physics: “Progress in science cannot be measured in dollars. The benefits of the expedition are so likely to surpass anything we can expect that the cost will seem a trifle once the results come in.” Others suggest that while federal spending on space exploration is intrinsically constructive, vast defense outlays are not. If federal funds are to be diverted to urgent domestic needs, they contend, the money should come from the Pentagon.

If to many the moon seemed white, it also seemed middleaged. Excitement about the voyage was strongest among those old enough to remember how fantastic the project seemed a generation ago. The young, who have grown up in the TV and space age, seemed the most blasé of all. Noted Andrew Craig, head of aeronautical engineering at Wichita State University: “They take for granted that what you see in 2001: A Space Odyssey will be commonplace in their adult lives.” Mrs. John Graves, an elderly Atlanta housewife, expressed a different kind of disenchantment. “It’s all a bunch of foolishness.” Didn’t they say that about Columbus? “Yes, and that was a bunch of foolishness, too.”

It did not seem so to the majority of Americans, and certainly not to the majority of people abroad. By satellite television, the voyage of Apollo 11 was seen and heard round the world by an audience estimated at 528 million by ABC-TV, which handled pool coverage. Many other nations sought a sense of sharing and involvement in the great adventure. Italians pointed proudly to Astronaut Collins’ Roman birth. Frenchmen recalled that Jules Verne had charted the voyage more than 100 years ago. Germans noted that it was Wernher von Braun who had labored a quarter-century to perfect a rocket that could carry men to the moon. Russians were gratified that the American astronauts carried to the moon medals awarded posthumously to two Soviet cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov. Color television sets were virtually sold out in Japan.

More than 50,000 South Koreans watched the launch on a giant screen in Seoul. David Threlfall, 26, waited in London to collect his bounty from the bookmaking firm of William Hill Ltd.; he bet $24 in 1964 that men would land on the moon by 1971, and got 1,000-to-l odds. In Beirut on the morning of launch, a woman gave birth to her eleventh child—and promptly named him Apollo Eleven Salim. The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheik Ahmed Hereidi; said he approved lunar exploration because “the Koran urges Moslems to look up from their earthly abode to what lies behind the moon and the stars.” In Recife, Brazilians planned an off-season carnival with float parades and dancing in the streets.

Less Anthropocentrism

Even if the mission proved to be completely successful, it was much too soon to assess its true significance. Historian James MacGregor Burns was not impressed. “It’s a very proud and fine day for all Americans,” he said, “but it’s an event apart from the main flow of history.” Stanford Physicist Robert Hofstadter, a Nobel prizewinner, disagreed: “In a thousand years there will be few things remembered, but this will be one of them.”

To some, Apollo 11 ‘s mission to the moon means hope for a less anthropocentric view of man and a new perspective on the human condition. “I think if we can get so far away from ourselves, we should be able to look back down here and see how tiny the earth is,” said Rita Moore, an Atlanta secretary. “Maybe we’ll be able to see now that we’re all on a small planet and we ought to be working together.” Said famed Biochemist Isaac Asimov: “It will teach us to be humble. The earth is a small body, a tiny thing lost in a vast universe.” The British Interplanetary Society prepared a message for the astronauts on their return, ending with H. G. Wells’ prophecy: “When man has conquered all the depths of space and the mysteries of time, then will he be but still beginning.” If disaster were to overtake the astronauts of Apollo 11, or a later moon mission, men would not be deterred from pressing ahead to explore the universe. Whether excited, indifferent or embittered, few could doubt that in this week in July, A.D. 1969, the planet earth and all its people moved toward new beginnings, in the heavens and quite possibly on earth.