“To Infinity and Beyond!” : The NASA Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers, USA

Once upon a time, long, long ago, we told fanciful stories about a moon made of cheese, and about a man who lived there.

Then, fifty years ago this week, while we all watched on our flickery black-and-white television screens, American astronauts Commander Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin exited their Apollo Lunar Module Eagle and walked on the surface of that same moon, and Michael Collins orbited it in the Command Module Columbia.

Like anyone else of my era, I know exactly where I was when it happened!

It is hard to imagine now, in this age of the 24-hour news cycle, how this single event captured the Western world’s imagination. Twenty percent of the world’s population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. We sat, transfixed: watching grainy pictures of two grown men in oversize baggy suits dancing, hopping, and floating across the lunar landscape, collecting not cheese, but lumps of rock. 

In those days, the American Space Program was part of a competitive ‘space race’. When the USSR launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik (Russian for “traveller”), into the Earth’s orbit on October 4, 1957, it was seen as an indicator of Russian technological superiority. In an era of Cold War, this generated alarm and anxiety in the United States and in some of its allies. This was compounded when, in April 1961, one month before Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter Earth’s orbit.

Public reaction to these events led directly to President John F. Kennedy making a special speech to the United States congress on May 25, 1961, committing American funds and energy to the space race, and promising to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth within the decade. In our Canadian classrooms, we drew colourful pictures of moons and stars, cosmonauts and astronauts, and rockets and space capsules. And, as I said earlier, we all watched, when – eight years later, on July 20th, 1969 – Armstrong stepped out of Eagle, the Apollo lunar landing module and into the moon’s low gravity. Four days later, we held our collective breath as the capsule carrying the three astronauts splashed down safely in the North Pacific Ocean after more than eight days in space.

It was a thrill, on a road-trip through the US some years ago, to be able to review some of this space history on visits to NASA Space Centers in Houston: where the control rooms were/are, and Cape Canaveral: where the rockets were actually launched. 

And, with the anniversary of the first lunar landing this week, it was neat to look at these old pictures. Join me for a walk back in time.

None of the later space endeavours captured the public’s imagination in quite the same way as the Apollo 11 mission. And, there are still conspiracy theorists who argue about shadows; the effects of wind, gravity, and inertia; and claim that the landing never happened. 

Most of us, though, seeing men on the moon let go of fantasies about the man in the moon, and instead, dreamed of further travels into space.

It was a magical moment in time, full of hope and promise.

And now, tinged with nostalgia.

Until next time.

Pictures: 22May2013 and 02June2013