(7/2019) On July 20, 1969, the United States accomplished the impossible; they sent a team of astronauts to the moon, and two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on its dusty, cratered surface for the first time in history. The lunar landing was the event of the decade – some may say the century, and it was America’s way to prove her power to the world and to
herself during the Cold War, a time of national fear and doubt. The strange truth is that the event that was once considered impossible is now taken for granted. My peers and I were raised in a scientific world for which walking on the moon was just a "first step." The National Space Program has moved further than the moon: probing Mars, capturing images of stars in the
various stages of their formation, piecing together a model of our galaxy and others. The universe is much larger than we could have imagined in 1969, and our exploration has given us knowledge of our universe and our place within it.
The lunar landing, however, was a notable first in space exploration. To get a sense of the impact Apollo 11 had on everyday life, I asked a few family members about their memories of the event. My grandmother, Rosanne Alessi, reflects on the landing: "It was a huge event at the time. Now, there’s so much going on, we don’t even think about it, but at that time, it was
huge." In fact, she remembers where she was 50 years ago when she saw the television broadcast of the landing. She says, "I was walking in an area where stores were, and it [the landing] was playing on television at the store. And that was how we saw it." She especially remembers seeing Armstrong and Aldrin placing the American flag on the surface of the moon.
My paternal grandmother, Peggy Pinter, has a more personal connection with the landing. She, like Alessi, remembers feeling amazed when she saw the landing on television. "It was unbelievable," she recalls, "It was kind of like a miracle. Can you imagine, at that time, thinking of that? A man on the moon!" She remembers feeling incredulous: "In many ways, it was
unbelievable... It was kind of like science fiction. Like it wasn’t real, but it was." Many years, later, however, she would meet and eventually marry Warren Pinter, a NASA engineer who helped to design the environmental systems on the spacecraft during the Apollo 11 mission. Pinter reflects that this was "one of the most stressful times" of her late husband’s life. "And,"
she adds, "he had nine kids!"
According to Pinter, her husband’s environmental system was the one that brought the team back to earth after the first system failed. She reflects that "Warren was amazed himself that it worked." Warren Pinter retired shortly after Apollo 11’s success, but he was proud of his contribution to the space program. A thank you message from NASA, signed personally by Buzz
Aldrin, still hangs on the wall at Pinter’s home.
The fifty-year-old memories, storefront televisions, and souvenirs hung on the wall tell the story of the moon landing’s impression on those who witnessed it in various ways. America was proud when it saw its flag planted on the surface of the moon, but the days of astronauts walking the moon are now over. Does this mean our nation has abandoned its space exploration to
collect dust as a once-impressive moment of history? The space landing is part of my family’s history as well, and, while NASA is no longer sending astronauts to the moon, my family’s connection with the space program continues with my astrophysics enthusiast brother, Joseph Rowell, who will be attending MIT in the fall to study aerospace engineering.
Joseph has been studying astronomy and physics independently since he was a young child; his passion speaks for itself. When I asked Joseph whether he thought the nation was better in 1969 when NASA was still sending men to the moon, he responded with a firm negative. Now, according to Joseph, the space program’s reasons for continuing space exploration are more scientific
and practical today than they were in 1969. He explained, "The only reason we went to the moon in 1969 was for military reasons against the Soviets. Now we have switched to science, which is much more practical to do on the space station. Now, going back to the moon is not about putting people there, but about setting up technology there."
Joseph acknowledges the difficulties the NASA is facing after the conclusion of the Cold War: "It’s not a race anymore, and the budget has been cut because of that." He does, however, think that NASA has a lot more to do than putting a man on the moon. The next step is not bringing people to the moon for brief visits, but bringing them beyond earth, potentially
permanently. Joseph excitedly continued: "It has to do with human expansion. If you believe that all humans were meant to do is stay on earth, there is very little practical reason to go to space. But if we want to expand into space, we need to understand how earth’s ecosystems operate away from earth, from gravity to zero-gravity, and to environments with higher radiation."
The future of space exploration, then, is to learn more about how to bring "earth" to new planets.
There is more space, infinite space, to explore. The moon landing was a feat to be proud of, but it was only the beginning. There is a new "impossible" to be accomplished, and a new generation to dream it up. America’s new goal should not be to flaunt her strength to other nations, or even to test her own limits, but to make the world – the universe – a better place for
humans to live. Now, without the competition and threat that drove our first steps, we can focus ore purely on the reasons for our efforts, and the good that they might accomplish.
