The Other Statement
By Albert B. Kelly
This July, whether we realize it or not, our country will
observe the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. If
you’re old enough, you remember when the race to the moon began in 1961 when
President Kennedy committed us to landing a man on the moon and returning him
safely to earth before end of the decade of the 1960’s. If you’re younger,
perhaps you only remember the moon landing itself – the image of Neil Armstrong
as he stepped out onto the surface of the moon and uttered his famous line
about it being one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.
Thinking about that event now, it strikes me that there are
a couple of generations who only know of Apollo 11 and the moon landing as a
thing of history, something they recall hearing about in school in the same way
I heard about two world wars and the Great Depression. Such is the passage of
time. Just as I don’t have personal memories of the depression or World War II,
a fair number of people today don’t have personal memories of the Apollo 11
mission.
That’s unfortunate in a way because thinking back to July of
1969, as turbulent and chaotic as things might have seemed the moon landing was
a singular achievement bigger than the era which contained it. The journey unfolded
over several days and as divided as the nation was over the war in Vietnam and our
politics, the moon landing was a moment when we all felt our “smallness”
looking up at the moon in the night sky. More importantly, it was a focal point
that went beyond nations and spoke to “humankind”.
But with the passage of time, the various technologies we
have developed over the last 50 years, and the fact that we walk around with more
computing power in our smart phones than the Apollo 11 mission had, many take
the moon landing for granted somehow assuming that a successful outcome was inevitable,
but it wasn’t. So much was unknown at the time about the surface of the moon
and the difficulties of taking the landing craft down from the mothership to
the surface of the moon and then making it back to dock safely.
My point is that the 2 men who made the journey to the
surface of the moon were genuine in their courage and heroism. I was reminded
of this recently not so much from the accolades they received upon their safe return,
but from a statement that was written and never issued- kept in President Richard
Nixon’s suit pocket in case things went badly.
“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to
explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil
Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But
they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men
are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth
and understanding.”
The speech went on to say; “They will be mourned by their
families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be
mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that
dared send two of her sons into the unknown.”
The speech concluded with these words; “Others will follow,
and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men
were first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human
being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is
some corner of another world that is forever mankind”.
What were also startling were the brief instructions written
below the official statement drafted by speech writer Bill Safire; “After the
President’s statement, at the point when NASA ends communications with the men:
a clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending
their souls to “the deepest of the deep”.
Knowing the outcome as we do, it’s hard to imagine the
alternative until we think about “no hope for recovery” and mission control agonizing
over when to end communications. History records Armstrong’s famous first words
and we celebrate them, but we easily forget that it could have been his last words
that we’d most recall 50 years later.