A Glimmer of Borderless Unity - On the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11

Robin Ince's Blog

I was alive when humans first landed on the Moon, but unaware. I was still at the “confused by my own reflection” stage of existence, sometimes I still am, but more due to the shock of my aged face than fear of who it is that lies behind the glass.

The iconic image of Neil Armstrong’s reflection in Buzz Aldrin’s visor on the lunar surface

The more I watch those first moments of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the Moon, the more I marvel at it. Repeated viewings increase the wonder rather than reduce it. Fifty years on, it remains a rare event. Three short years of Moon visits and then the project ended. Only four living people on Earth have stood on an organic object beyond the planet Earth’s atmosphere. Interviewing Charlie Duke, the Capcom of Apollo 11 and who himself landed on the Moon with John Young on the Apollo 16 mission, he said that his father could barely believe that it was possible for a human to get to the Moon while his son didn’t really think it was such a big deal. We can get used to staggering achievement very quickly. Probably too quickly.

On that day in 1969, where did those in NASA think we would be in fifty years time? How many would have considered the International Space Station as too parochial for their ambition? Buzz Aldrin remains passionately certain that we could have been on Mars by now.

We could have been on Mars”?

Of the many achievements of Apollo 11, perhaps the one that offers most potential hope is that as the astronauts travelled the world, they would meet excited people of many nations who said, “We landed on the Moon”.

A glimmer of borderless unity was observed.

Those few astronauts looked back at a planet from a distance where the internal feuding and nationalistic resentments could not be observed.

Rusty Schweickart of Apollo 9 has said that the greatest achievement of the Apollo missions was not landing on the Moon, but three missions back on Apollo 8, the mission to scout the Moon and look for viable landing areas that launched on 21st December, 1968 .

Rusty Schweickart of Apollo 9, backstage with Robin at our Space Shambles show at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018. Pic by Steve Best

Frank Borman, commander of that mission, was strict and highly focused. He knew this would be his last mission. He instructed Jim Lovell and William Anders that there was to be no looking out of the window, their minds must be solely on the task of the mission. Borman was distracted for a while after succumbing to a bout of vomiting and diarrhoea, which also distracted Anders and Lovell as, with no gravity to keep it all together, the floating waste expulsions had to be collected bit by bit by paper towel. [Anders had apparently been wary of the hullabaloo of even normal pooing in space and had been on a low residue diet a few days before departure – I cannot find any record that reveals whether this worked or not].  This was one hell of way for these three men to spend Christmas together.

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Looking out of the window on Christmas eve, Anders suddenly called for a camera and colour film. He had seen something that he had to capture. Borman told him not to as this was an image that was not on the itinerary, but he took the photo anyway. Many consider it to be the most important photograph ever taken. It was Earthrise. It was a snapshot with momentous ramifications. It was a summary of the words of Mercury Seven astronaut Scott Carpenter, “This planet is not terra firma. It is a delicate flower and it must be cared for. It’s lonely. It’s small. It’s isolated, and there is no resupply. And we are mistreating it.” For Rusty Schweickart, this was Apollo’s most lasting achievement. 

Anders’ Earthrise photo. Pic via NASA

Gil Scott Heron condemned Apollo 11’s mission with his poem Whitey on the Moon. And with all the suffering that we might imagine could be extinguished for its cost, one might agree with him. But within this ambition to explore space, there is the potential to find ways to start to erase petty patriotism that leads to dogmas of superiority, to explore some way of tackling our rivalries with universal grand ambition and within that, working on the very problems that Gil Scott Heron believed were being ignored as Armstrong stood on the Moon.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

There are many memories of what people saw and felt as they watched the moon landing. I spoke to Andy and Jan Aldrin, children of Buzz, for this weekend’s episode of Apollo Infinite Monkey Cage. When I asked Andy how he felt as an eleven year old watching his dad on the Moon, he talked of his worry. It was not the worry of whether his dad would come back or if there would be a catastrophic accident, it was that as he watched his dad bouncing on the Moon, he noticed a cable near his feet and thought, “Please don’t trip over that, dad, all my school friends will be watching and I don’t want you to embarrass me while you’re on the Moon”.

The variety of our human reactions never fails to delight.

Robin will be hosting Space Shambles with Helen Sharman at the Latitude Festival this Saturday July 20th, the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and is on tour in November with his show Chaos of Delight. The Infinite Monkey Cage Apollo Special is also out on Saturday on the BBC.

Robin Ince is a multi-award winning comedian, writer and broadcaster.  As well as spending decades as one the UK’s most respected stand-ups, Robin is perhaps best known for co-hosting The Infinite Monkey Cage radio show with Brian Cox.  For his work on projects like Cosmic Shambles he was made an Honorary Doctor of Science by Royal Holloway, University of London. His latest book, I’m a Joke and So Are You is out now.

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