FOR THE SURVIVAL OF MANKIND
How many readers know the first and last people to walk on the moon, and what the space program was called? Don’t Google the answer; I’m going to give it to you: Gene Cernan has the distinction of being the last human being to walk on the moon in 1972. The first was Neil Armstrong, who proudly proclaimed, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” as he slowly left the Apollo 11 spacecraft for the lunar surface. And it was a giant leap. At the time, it was such an incredible technological advancement, the whole world was riveted. As a result, the world followed every step of the Apollo program, and our “race to space” with the Soviets. There are pivotal moments in the history of mankind when the world virtually stands still in awe. Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon was one of those moments, as was the saga of Apollo 13.
Ninety percent of myspacers were not even born when Neil Armstrong made his famous leap to the moon. I was too young to remember, but old enough to recall other Apollo lift-offs. I marvel at how my family and the entire world were mesmerized by the plight of Apollo 13, as the crew boldly and bravely triumphed over the adversity of a ship crippled by an explosion, and returned home safely. Keep in mind that at the time, there was no such thing as a space rescue.
How big was that leap in technology? There is really still no protocol for space rescues, although there are International Space Station scenarios if the crippled shuttle is able to dock. Why am I recounting ancient history?
President Bush recently stated that we would return to the moon in this century, when many predicted we’d never go back. Why would we need to? The moon cannot sustain life, and we simply do not have the technology to create a colony of researchers whose only mission is to explore for the sake of science, not to scout a future home for mankind.
The reason the Apollo missions were abandoned is that we simply had nowhere to go from there, as we didn’t possess the technology to advance the program. Instead, we shifted our emphasis to space exploration that was well within our technological ability and budgets, leaving the Star Trek visions behind us. Why keep returning to the moon if you don’t have the technology to benefit mankind? You can only bring back so many moon rocks. (I am old enough to remember when moon rocks were sold, and were all the rage.)
Why should we go back? Because scientists and President Bush know that assuming we don’t eliminate ourselves through war or other catastrophe, in the distant future the moon will be the only hope of mankind’s survival. Not because the population will migrate there to avoid extinction, but because the earth’s resources are finite, and at some point – whether it be 1,000 or 1,000,000 years – those resources will be gone. Unless we have the advanced technology necessary to live off the land and develop new ways to sustain ourselves, the human race will not survive. We should return to the moon for the survival of mankind – long after all of us are dead and forgotten.
We can’t have a race threatened with extinction start over from scratch. People are smart enough to know that we have to start laying the groundwork now for the distant future. I hope we go back to the moon in my lifetime, so that I may relive the incredible feats of the Apollo missions that bring tears to my eyes every time I ponder what they meant then, and what they mean now – our future as a species. I can only hope that it is one of my descendents who plays a role in contributing to our ultimate survival.
