Apollo. Moon. 50th anniversary. ‘One small step…’. The last day we were united as ONE.
That day.
To put it into perspective the man who did it, Neil Armstrong was later quoted as saying ‘I’ll not assert that it was a diversion which prevented a war, but nevertheless, it was a diversion.‘
Half a century ago now. Half of us remember it and half of us were not even born yet.
Born in ’77 I was born in the decade after.
But on the 16th of July 1969 3 men embarked on a mission that resulted in humanity gaining a footstep on another celestial body – the Moon. On the 20th of July 1969 at 4:18pm history was made. And the world looked on as one.
When JFK promised the world in the early 60s that the USA would put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade the world mostly thought of political posturing, until 1969 and the month of July and then on the 16th it was suddenly very real. To everyone. Over the world entire.
Man was about to leave Earth and arrive somewhere else for the first time. Ever.
There’s a finality to that which brought everyone into a place which was beautiful to behold. How loudly it echo’d down the decades and touched even me is something to say to the power of it.
“The eagle has landed” – Neil Armstrong. At 4:18 p.m. on July 20, 1969
The world then had to stand in almost breathless silence as one and hope and pray. The astronauts had landed on the Moon but they had to sleep. The trip had been a constant exhaustion. The stress levels were barely tolerable, even for these elite professionals. And then there was the unknown for everyone – probaly felt most acutely by none other than Neil Armstrong.
6 hours and 39 minutes later… the world witnessed live on TV:
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong.
To a man one and all thought ‘So when will we get to Mars then?!’
50 years on.
Now the Moon is again in our cross hairs and also so is Mars, in the ‘near’ future.
Bear in mind the Saturn V rocket was designed to go to SATURN with robots and Mars with people, not just the Moon – 50 years ago!
Todays rocketology programs are only just getting to the point we were at 50 years ago and thank fuck for that already.
If the world ever needed something to get united behind, then now would be that time. At the 50th anniversary. Half the people in the world lived through it – the other half have been touched by it to some degree or another.
At 42 I would like to say I can look forward to mankind making it to Mars but it’s going to take more effort than we currently put into being at war.
Hopefully today we can all hear that echo of achievement from our shared history and stand together as one again.