Since the dawn of time itself, humans have been fascinated by the sun and the stars, the planets, their movements and our own planet’s place in all that. And probably for most of that time people have speculated about extraterrestrial life, and more recently begun to consider the resources of other planets and the possibity of setting up some way of living on other near planets. (I haven’t read too much about the wisdom of doing that, though) We know that there’s an enormous lot we need to know before doing that, and I doubt it will be a reality in my lifetime.
Rocketry as a weapon of war has been around for hundreds of years, but technolgical innovation and development during and following WWII and continued in peace time with accelerated pace, as in 1955 the USA and USSR both announced plans to develop and put a satellite into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik’s launch on October 4th 1957 completely surprised the Americans, triggering the space race to put a man on the moon.
Of course aged only 10, I didn’t yet know any of this back story – so my first memory of human activity in space was of gazing up into the night sky late in 1957, watching with amazement what Dad explained was the Russian Soviets’ satellite Sputnik slowly moving across the sky. Those memories were triggered by this month’s Artemis II manned space flight around the moon and back again.
That flight was ground breaking because for the first time human eyes saw the dark side of the moon which we’d only seen through imagery sent back to Earth by passing satellites, and the 4 astronauts on board did conduct experiments with the latest technology. However, despite all the hype and exhaustive details of the astronauts’ suits, food, training, pre-flight prep, countdown and launch, inflight updates, the landing and post flight briefings, it’s my opinion that Artemis II pales to insignificance beside that day in July 1969 when the whole world stood still to watch grainy tv or listen to the radio description of the first moon landing. US astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to step down onto the moon, saying those words we’ve all heard many times since “…first small step for man and a giant leap for mankind”, Here’s a short video from that day (more on YouTube) We were in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, where TV had not yet arrived, so could only listen, spellbound, to the radio coverage relayed to us over the school’s PA system. As home room teacher of a class of first year highschoolers, I must say I’d never seen them so orderly and still, before or since! We had to wait until the next afternoon to see the first photos in that morning’s Perth newspapers when they arrived by air that afternoon. Kalgoorlie’s morning daily, The Kalgoorlie Miner, at that time only had pen drawings.
Everyone listening and watching that day absolutely knew it was groundbreaking. It’s one of those key moments we all have in our lives about which we remember exactly where we were and what we doing at that moment we heard a dramatic piece of news. In my own life, other such moments include the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on which morning was announced the conquest of Mt Everest by Sir Edmund Hilary; the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy; the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer and her 1997 death; and the 1993 NYC Twin Towers attack.