on the road with David Levy
July 16, 1969: A defining moment
D
By DAVID H. LEVY
Sky’s Up Editor in Chief
uring the summer of 1968 I began working as an
astronomy instructor at Camp Minnowbrook — a
music, arts and science camp on the north shore of
Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New
York. Lothar Eppstein and his wife, Paula, directed the camp.
They ran it rather strictly, but during the three years I worked
for them I grew to love them both.
On the morning of July 16, 1969, I was working my second
year as an astronomy counselor. On that day the entire camp
gathered in the third floor auditorium to watch the liftoff of
Apollo 11, which carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz
Aldrin and Michael Collins. This mission was the first
American attempt to land on the Moon.
The launch took place like clockwork.
On that day, As the countdown reached T minus seven
five huge rocket engines lit up. These
how many of us seconds,
engines were so enormous that one could set
wondered what up housekeeping inside each of them. After
seconds, all of the engines were firing
would happen next? aatfew
full thrust. Then slowly, the mighty Saturn
Would humanity inched upwards from its launch pad and tower,
up speed as it roared into the sky.
go to Mars? Romp picking
Four days later, the camp gathered again to
across an asteroid, watch the tricky landing on the Moon. We
not know at the time how close to being
or explore a comet? did
canceled that landing came. With just thirty
On that night there seconds of fuel left, Neil appeared to be still
the process of selecting his landing site. But
seemed nothing in
he was cool as a cucumber; he had found a site
our species could and was gently completing his landing there.
up some dust... Engine stop...”
not do if we set our “Picking
And then...
“Tranquility base here. The Eagle has
minds to it.
landed.”
It is hard to recall the emotions that went through my mind
at that moment; even harder to appreciate that when it shut
down, the Eagle had just a few seconds of fuel left in its
descent stage.
Two hours later I had a conversation with the head
counselor, who had planned a typical program of evening
activities. I suggested that we watch the first step on the
lunar surface that evening, but the head counselor brusquely
turned me aside, telling me to mind my own business and do
my job without questioning anything. I returned to my table
feeling rather put-off by the turn-down. But either the head
counselor went to Lothar with that suggestion, or more likely
the director himself overheard our conversation.
A few minutes later Lothar made his announcement
regarding the single most important world event in our
30
lifetimes. “Evening program canceled,” he said. “Instead,
and there is no question about this, we’ll all meet in the
auditorium and watch these first steps on the Moon. History
will be made tonight.”
We gathered in the auditorium — 150 people faced a small
black-and-white TV set sitting on a chair on the stage. The
hours before the egress passed quickly; even though the time
was getting close to 11 pm, no one wanted to leave.
Suddenly there appeared on the screen a picture of the lunar
module with Neil Armstrong on its porch. There were 150
faces in our audience, each one frozen toward the tiny screen.
“I am at the top of the ladder,” Armstrong said.
Despite the numbers of people there, I had no trouble
hearing every word, for the children were now breathlessly
silent. Step by step the astronaut descended.
“I am at the foot of the ladder,” Neil Armstrong uttered.
Then, as we held our breaths, he went down the final step to
the Moon, placing one, then both feet on its surface and into
history.
As we now know the full majesty of the words he said:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for
mankind.”
I could not hold back tears as I beheld that moment. Eight
years after President Kennedy gave us the Moon as a target
and a challenge for the nation, and a mere eleven years after
NASA was born, a human was there. On that night, as onesixth of the world’s population watched, humanity made its
initial steps onto a new world and into a new era.
On that day, how many of us wondered what would happen
next? Would humanity go to Mars? Romp across an asteroid,
or explore a comet? On that night there seemed nothing our
species could not do if we set our minds to it.
I imagine that most of us would provide a disappointing
reply to this question. But it isn’t all negative; for example,
few envisaged that just a few years later, the intrepid
Voyager spacecraft would sail past Jupiter, Saturn and
Saturn’s moon Titan. Its sister craft, Voyager 2, would
then accomplish the long hoped for Grand Tour of the
outer planets, visiting the four giant worlds Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune.
And who would have imagined the great Pluto story? Early
in 2006, New Horizons, perched atop an Atlas 5, soared aloft
from the Kennedy Space Center all the way to Pluto. Just
a few months after this marvelous launch, the International
Astronomical Union would reclassify Pluto into something
other than what I think really is.
We all probably could foretell that human explorers would
build a Space Station housing astronauts and cosmonauts
from lands all around the world. Actually, many, many
accomplishments have occurred, just not the ones we hoped
for on that magical late evening of July 20, 1969.
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