Witnessing the First Moon Landing

On July 20, 1969, two men landed and walked on the Moon. For the first time, mankind had ambassadors living on a world alien to all previous terrestrial life. For the first time, we were the aliens. As with much of the populace of the time, I got to witness this extraordinary event. But I almost missed it.

Some people (many about my age) who don’t know me scoff when I say I remember clearly the Moon landings. Regular readers of this blog know what a complete life-long nerd/geek I am. I have never known a world without human spaceflight–Yuri Gagarin’s historic voyage taking place one week before I was born. By the time of the Apollo program, I was very much a student of spaceflight. Where other kids would build models of Fords and Chevys, I was building models of Saturn Vs, LMs, and Ed White walking in space.

My key to the kingdom was my father, who worked for an aerospace contractor. In the late 60s, he was stationed at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena, CA. Though his professional focus was on the unmanned probes we were launching to other worlds, he had access to a lot of nifty materials that a nerdy 8-year-old (i.e., me) just gobbled up. A lot of my reading practice came from these precious gifts. (FYI, I still have most of it. A small sampling is shown in the picture at right.) By the time the manned Apollo missions were starting, I was probably better versed in space technology than most adults.

After the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, something happened that put my world in a tailspin: our TV was on the fritz. Now remember, these are the days when most people who had them only had one wired-in phone for the house (which had to be leased from AT&T), and one television. One. Television. And ours wasn’t working just prior to one of the most momentous events in human history.

My father called in the repairman who, of course, said the set had to be taken into the shop. I was heartbroken. My father explained the situation to the guy and managed to wrangle a b&w loaner so we could watch the lunar events unfold. My father assured me that the video images would be in b&w anyway, so us being without a color set wasn’t a big deal.

Great discoveries and events in human history, to that point, were realized second-hand. Often, only the participants were there. More recently, the events were recorded, but they weren’t available to the public until after some delay. The Moon landing was “live”. As it was happening, everyone who could tune in was a witness to the event. How amazing is that? Not only did something momentous happen, but we got to see it as it was happening.

I watched every available second of coverage.

That summer day and night in southern California was such a privilege to me. I was already a budding scientist, so it didn’t really change the course of my life. It was a privilege because even little 8-year-old me could understand how special this was. I’m privileged because I could see and appreciate the events. On the other hand, my brother was born just days after the completion of the Apollo 17 mission, the last time our kind has visited the Moon. To him, this is history, just as Sputnik is to me.

The space program has been such a part of my life that it’s almost like family. When I was in my early twenties I even worked in the Space Sciences division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. Apollo, and the other missions, didn’t so much leave me a legacy as they wove themselves into my life’s tapestry.

On this 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, do I have any opinions about what has happened since and what is still to come? Don’t be silly…of course I do.

The clearest thing is that no one knows how much high technological innovation will cost or how long it will take. Sure, you can guess, but it will inevitably take longer and cost more. That’s because, by definition, when you are innovating you are doing something that hasn’t been done before. Budgets and timetables are made when you already have an established and tested process; doing them before is remarkably idiotic. Congress, especially, needs to give the innovative companies more slack while also insisting on more oversight. Frugality doesn’t mean “cheap”, only that the money was well-spent.

When specifications are drawn up, they should never be changed except by the design team. The early designs of so many of our space craft have been very functional. But then the government wants to Swiss-army-knife the design to make it all things to all people…with the result that you get badly compromised designs. The space shuttle, for instance, was to be more of a reusable space plane that would carry modest payloads and crew. Because the Air Force/Congress wanted to deposit their surveillance payloads (which are huge), the shuttle was legislated from being a Ford Ranger into being a Cadillac Escalade. What was once cheap and nimble became huge and troublesome. Design for the mission, not for unforeseen need.

Where should we go? Well…if we are dead-set on going to Mars, we have to go to the Moon first. It’s three days away. If you have a technical problem, you have a much better chance of salvaging the mission. I will admit, the Moon does have a been-there-done-that quality about it. But, as I mentioned in If We Can Send…, the fact of the matter is that we no longer have the capability of going to the Moon. We have to learn how all over again. If we can’t manage the Moon, then Mars will never happen.

For now, I do think humans need to be in space. Our biological computer is the most flexible problem-solving processor we know of. Until we are capable of making artificial explorers equivalently adaptable, humans need to venture forth. That said, I think we need to understand that human space exploration is more about psychology than practicality. Being that most people do not understand the drive for pure research, we need humans to go out in order to keep space relevant to us for now. And for our species to survive, we MUST venture out into space. Other than extinction, there is no other alternative.

But I digress. I’ve already written about this (Mankind’s Next Evolutionary Step – Cyborgs and Robots?; The Necessity of Leaving Earth Within 2 Billion Years).

The thing is, we wouldn’t even be seriously considering anything like this had the Moon missions not happened. Those of us who were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time got to see something that could only be dreamed of before. It was a wonder. And I got to see it live on a b&w loaner TV in July 1969.