On July 20th, 1969, fifty years ago, after launching from ‘Kenny Space Center’ four days earlier, the spacecraft ‘Apollo 11’ landed on the surface of the Moon and astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. walked into the world’s history books.
Altogether there have been many crewed and un-crewed (robotic) space launches. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 mission, on 13th September 1959. There have been six U.S. crewed landings (between 1969and 1972) and numerous un-crewed landings, with no soft landings happening between 1976 and 2013. To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted crewed missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. All crewed and un-crewed soft landings took place on the near side of the moon, until 3 January 2019, when the Chinese Change 4 spacecraft made the first landing on the far side of the moon.
Given the grave risks of these expeditions, ironically, the greatest loss of life of astronauts occurred on land before ‘take-off’, and not in space. On Jan. 27, 1967, the astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their ‘Apollo I’ spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
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This momentous moon landing was no doubt seen on the television by most of the western hemisphere. At the time that ‘Apollo 11’ was planning to fly to the moon, I was a newly-wed who was planning a happy future with my new bride. I’d only been married one year and was making surprise plans for our first wedding anniversary, which was a trip to Stratford on Avon to spend the weekend there and see another of Shakespeare’s marvellous plays being performed by one of the much-spoken-about newcomers to the theatre; a young woman called Judy Dench.
Indeed; although we’d agreed to have four or five children prior to our marriage (myself being Roman Catholic), eight years would pass before children eventually arrived on the scene. Meanwhile, our combined salaries provided us with adequate means of providing a taste of the high life before my wife seemed ready to settle down into parenthood. Before becoming a mother, she wanted to experience the high life.
We’d been privileged to have seen dozens of the bard’s works, along with other famous productions at the ‘Royal Shakespeare Theatre’ during our four-year engagement period prior to marriage. After seeing a play there, the night would conclude with a slap-up meal on the balcony overlooking the River Avon, before we returned to a high-class hotel that was situated on the riverside. One night's entertainment would cost more than the weekly wage of an average working man.
When I look back to these times now and consider the amount of money we two young professional workers regularly spent (my wife worked as a teacher and myself, a Probation Officer and our matrimonial house had been bought outright), I’d have to conclude that while watching the theatre performances by the finest actors in the country at the time were beautiful to behold, I began to find the practice of enjoying such a largesse lifestyle while many in the country struggled to make ends meet, as being one obscenity too far to stomach.
Much more spectacular to see at the time was a man walking on the Moon and seeing a panoramic picture of the Earth from the Moon above. It was akin of looking at oneself inside a galactic mirror that was framed by brilliant stars, across an immeasurable span of time. Around the time that I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the surface of the moon and declare, “That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” I had already determined to walk a different path in my life; a path in which materialism played much less of a part and my ‘quality of life’ switched totally from ‘what I was able to get out of life’ to ‘what I was able to contribute to the life of others’.
Prior to my marriage, I had started the journey along the path that I’d been born to walk; a path which I had allowed myself to be deviated from during the heady spin of early-married life. Having no children during our first eight years of married life (my ex-wife’s unilateral choice despite our earlier understanding to the contrary during our four years of courtship and engagement) probably allowed me to live a lavish lifestyle I neither needed nor wanted. When my first two children were born, I was reborn into the man I was always meant to be; a loving father and a fulfilled individual.
Some people like Commander Armstrong needed a lunar spacecraft to take them to their most desired destination, whereas I needed children to take me to the places I wanted to go in my heart, mind and soul. One way or another, there are times in each of our lives when we all need a rocket up the backside to shift us back onto the righteous path we have strayed from.
Love and peace Bill xxx