July 30, 2009 Vol. 2, Issue 7
NASA Associate Administrator Chris Scolese prepared the following remarks to recognize the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Today, we commemorate one of the true firsts in history. For millennia, the idea of traveling to the moon was a dream of storytellers. So, the last 50 years or so when we ventured into space, this new ocean, has been a brief moment in human existence. To think that 40 years ago and slightly more than 10 years after the Space Age began, people from planet Earth set foot on the moon is incredible; it proved that the stuff of dreams could be realized.
As we celebrate the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, it is fitting to remember that the giant leap for mankind that took place 40 years ago was the culmination of a grand challenge set forth eight years earlier by our 35th president, John F. Kennedy.
Speaking before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, President Kennedy said: “…in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
His words remind us that grand challenges like Apollo belong to all of us. They require a large, long-term commitment that only can come about when social, political, economic, and technological forces line up at the same time, and create the right conditions for a bold undertaking that has the potential to transform the world as we know it.
There was, of course, a political context that shaped the Apollo mission. The moon landing was the grand prize in the space race with the Soviet Union. Just a dozen years earlier, the Sputnik launch had set off a panic that the United States had been surpassed by the technologically superior Soviet Union. The Soviets then succeeded at a number of other firsts: first dog in space, first man in space, first woman, first space walk, and the first three-man crew.
The moon landing set those fears to rest. Although the United States had three different presidential administrations during the development of Apollo, the nation’s determination to accomplish the mission never wavered. The model of government partnering with private industry and universities during Apollo set a precedent that remains in place to this day.
So what did the moon landing accomplish? First, of course, there is the obvious:
- It proved humans could live and work in space for several days at a time. We take this for granted now, but at the time, we knew much less.
- We explored the Moon. The crew took photographs, collected lunar rocks and soil, and left experiments on the lunar surface that are still yielding data today. Those experiments have taught us a great deal about both the geology of the Moon and the Earth-Moon system.
- We developed a series of incredible machines over the course of less than a decade. The advances from the early Mercury rockets, which grew out of the ballistic missile program, to the Saturn V, which launched Apollo, represented several orders of magnitude of progress in a very compressed time frame.
- This effort built a national capability in aerospace that expanded our industrial base. The moon landing was the result of hundreds of thousands of individuals working literally millions of hours. It wasn’t just the individuals involved in the Apollo program who got Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon and back. It was also every individual who worked so hard on the Ranger and Surveyor lunar robotic programs, and the Mercury and Gemini manned spaceflight programs. Every one of those steps — all the knowledge gained, the failures endured, the lessons learned — was vital to the giant leap for mankind on July 20, 1969.
There also were some not-so-obvious results of Apollo:
- Going to the Moon changed our view of the Earth. The iconic “Earthrise” photo taken by the Apollo 8 crew on the mission preceding the first moon landing has been credited with helping to give rise to the environmental movement by raising consciousness of the Earth as a living ecological system. The “blue marble” photo taken during Apollo 17 achieved a similar iconic status.
- A generation put their energies into science and engineering — both within the space program and outside it — which helped to spur technical innovations that continue to this day.
- Those technical innovations and spin-offs pervade our daily lives. The miniaturization that led to personal computers and cell phones, medical technology such as kidney dialysis machines, water purification systems, and countless other technologies built on advances made during the Apollo program. It was not about Tang and Velcro.
- Apollo reminded us that what we can accomplish the seemingly impossible if we focus relentlessly on the mission. This means dedicating the resources necessary to get the job done, but it takes more than dollars and cents — it also takes commitment.
Our progress in spaceflight did not end in 1969.
Those of us who grew up inspired by Apollo — myself included — are now helping to set the course for the future of the space program. We know there are no boundaries, and we want to inspire and encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers the way Apollo did us 40 years ago.
Today, the International Space Station is showing us how to live and work in space. Consider that since 2000, at least two people have lived off our planet’s surface. Just as remarkable is that the station always has had an international crew. Think about that: we are now a space-faring civilization where multiple nations work together to create and manage a laboratory in space.
We continue to explore and inspire. Our robotic probes coupled with the Internet are providing researchers and students with a universal view — they are able to see everything ranging from satellite images of their homes to distant planets and galaxies. To cite just one example, NASA logged over 100 million hits on its website in the first 24 hours after the Spirit rover landed on Mars, winding up with over 550 million hits on the Mars websites that same year.
Our satellites improve life on our planet by providing us with a better understanding of Earth and its atmosphere. That allows us to improve agriculture, plan our towns and cities, track diseases, monitor the effects of climate change, and predict and mitigate the effects of severe storms.
The future is brighter still. We will continue our robotic explorations to understand the universe and search for life. And human space exploration will continue to yield dividends in a number of fields, such as medicine. The knowledge that we gain helps improve life on Earth, and it will form the basis for further human exploration of the solar system. Just think what living away from the planet will mean as we travel back to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.
Why do we do it? We do it because these challenges have the potential to revolutionize the world. Shortly after completing the first-ever spaceflight by an American astronaut, John Glenn said, “Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run — usually far greater than anything expected at the outset.” If history is any indication, we can expect that the future dividends of exploration will continue to exceed our expectations.
