Neil Armstrong’s Insight

A month before Neil Armstrong’s infamous Apollo 11 flight, he, at the request of Life Magazine, reflected on the meaning of the soon-to-be moon landing.

Expounding on his comments regarding what history would take away from this extraordinary venture, he stated.

Perhaps going to the moon and back in itself isn’t all that important. But it is a big enough step to give people a new dimension in their thinking—a sort of enlightenment.

He went on to say that he hoped that the world, by gathering a different perspective of the Earth, would learn to appreciate how precious our little spaceship is. A very insightful comment considering this was just prior to the first Earth Day celebration that occurred on April 22, 1970, following on the heels of a teach-in on the environment, hosted by a handful of students and staff at the University of Michigan. It was this photo taken by Apollo 8’s own Anders, that inspired many Earthlings to take action.

“Hopefully… we’ll be able to make some people step back and reconsider their mission in the universe, to think of themselves as a group of people who constitute the crew of a spaceship going through the universe. If you’re going to run a spaceship, you’ve got to be pretty cautious about how you use your resources, how you use your crew, and how you treat your spacecraft.

Hopefully the trips we will be making in the next couple of decades will open up our eyes a little. When you are looking at the Earth from the lunar distance, its atmosphere is just unobservable. The atmosphere is so thin, and such a minute part of the Earth, that it can’t be sensed at all. That should impress everyone (emphasis my own). The atmosphere of the Earth is a small and valuable resource. We’re going to have to learn how to conserve it and use it wisely. Down here in the crowd you are aware of the atmosphere, and it seems adequate, so you don’t worry about it too much. But from a different vantage point, perhaps it is possible to understand more easily why we should be worrying (again emphasis is mine).

It is often said by many, that it should be a requirement for all those serving as government officials, to spend time in orbit in order to give them a non-partisan perspective of our planet. To see it without borders and to view its delicate atmosphere. To see that we are all interconnected on this little world we call Earth.

Note: I’m currently reading First Man by James R Hansen, a biography on Neil’s life. It’s a very well-written history of the first man on the moon’s roots and how he became the hero to utter those illustrious words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”