Looking Back

To quote someone else who was witnessing another iconic moment: "Look at that son-of-a-bitch go!"

There are many odd and unusual anniversaries this year. This is the biggest one of all: it is 40 years since Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon, or rather, it will be, on July 20th.

Having blasted off on July 16th, the three astronauts would have been looking back at Earth by now, their home planet receding from them as they headed into open space.

It is that thought that moves me most about the moon-landing: what must it have felt like to be among the first to be able to see the whole Earth from a distance?

I marvel that the moon landings succeeded with technology so limited compared to today, and I am impressed, awe-struck even, to read of Armstrong's life-long 'inner calm,' the stable psyche and sense of himself which saved his life during many missions as a test pilot as well as when he joined the space program — and which also has made him a profoundly humble, even shy, man, despite being this man, the First Man.

But there's an unexpectedness and collectiveness to the moment when the astronauts (though it had been remarked on by previous orbiting crews) see the Earth diminish and sense its fragility. Nothing underlines a feeling of "this-is-the-only-one-you've-got-so-don't-break-it," like seeing the Earth from afar! The space program was one huge forwards-march rush for humanity, even with the added pressure of Cold War rivalry. The sense of our beautiful, solitary, planetary home, seen for the first time, was a profound moment for millions across the world.

This emotion, which I've conveyed here only awkwardly, I feel, is said far better by an Apollo 9 astronaut who with his crew members were the first to see 'Earth rise', but in the truest sense, words would fail anyone!

"On that small spot," said Russell Schweickart of Apollo 9, "that little blue, and white thing, is everything that means anything to you — all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it on that little spot out there that your can cover with your thumb."