Small steps come before giant leaps

Excerpt

The drama of the Apollo missions to the moon unfolded while I was a post doc at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My wife, Susan, and I sat gripped by the TV as the Apollo 11 mission and the historic first step on the moon on 20 July 1969 were brought to us in real time. We attended the launch of Apollo 12 in Florida, though our view and hearing were obscured by a rainstorm. So, while we were only about 7 miles from the launch pad, our families in the UK 4,500 miles away, had a better view than we did! Later, with Walter Cronkite, we lived through every minute of the fateful outward and nail-biting return journeys of Apollo 13. We rejoiced when he reported a successful splash-down in the Pacific Ocean and the safe return to Earth of Lovell, Swigert and Haise. I was, therefore, moved by the announcement of the death of Neil Armstrong on 25 August to contemplate (in a small way) humanity and human destiny. What was it about the time, the people (individually and collectively) and the circumstance that made this a unique milestone in human achievement (but one which, at the time, was viewed as an expensive distraction by some and a massive deception by others)? There is probably less of a recollection of the massive collective effort that went into the US space programme that ended up with that ‘small step’ for a man, starting with the early planning and political decision-making, the bringing together and the organisation of the skills, judgements, insights, ingenuity and resources needed to solve the many component challenges and problems that led to that moment on that memorable Sunday. Neil Armstrong’s personal demeanour after the triumph seemed to reflect his awareness of the teamwork of all those involved in the enterprise and its significance as well as of the risks involved, particularly to the lives of the astronauts themselves. The echoes of this triumph are still with us as we marvel at NASA’s achievement in landing and successfully deploying the Curiosity roving laboratory on Mars. …