On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon with a declaration, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” It is said that an estimated 530 million people viewed the event, yet there may be little interest among today’s millennials. As we observe the anniversary of that historic moment, we should be mindful of the determination, sacrifices and heroism of many that led towards that “giant leap for mankind.” When one mentions the name of Armstrong, it is uttered with the same reverence as Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and the Wright Brothers. And rightly so, but it must be pointed out that the mission was a culmination of the works of people who passionately took the challenge of President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural speech before Congress on May 25, 1961, when he proposed that the US “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
Prior to writing this column, I viewed the astonishing documentary, Apollo 11, that chronicled the period from the pre-launch until the safe return of the triumvirate of Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Armstrong.
The mission of sending a man to the moon was more of a journey to the unknown. The staff had to lay the foundation, as NASA flight director Glynn Lunney recalled that the top-ranked officials would tell newcomers, “We don’t have manuals. We’re looking for you to write the manuals.” By today’s standards, the technology was crude, and thus, depended so much on human accuracy. Armstrong once admitted that the chances of success of the moon landing was 50-50.
While it is true that the space race between the US and the Soviet Union was one of the results of the Cold War, the competition brought about the best minds of both superpowers. Despite the rhetoric between the two nations and the planting of the American flag on the lunar surface, the final act of Armstrong and Aldrin was to leave a small package of memorial items to Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov. After all, whether Russian or American, they all represented mankind in the exploration of the universe.
Presently, the International Space Station is a testament of nations working together in space exploration. This program is jointly owned and operated by NASA (US), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada). With the technological breakthroughs in the past 50 years and the revived interest in space travel by entrepreneurs like Elon Musk (SpaceX), Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) and of countries like China and India, here’s to another golden age in space exploration in the next 50 years!