The always-reticent first man on the moon has a few brief comments here on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11; liftoff from Earth was 40 years ago today.
Although I don’t consider myself fully a part of the baby boom, this was the first of three big, big events in early childhood that are still remembered today.
This was the first, when I was 5 years old.
Next, just after my ninth birthday, was the announcement of the Paris peace accords to “end,” or Vietnamize, the Vietnam War. (My oldest brother was a high school sophomore, so that’s part of why this was important.)
Then came Aug. 9, 1974 — President Nixon’s resignation.
Apollo 11 stood, theoretically, was a counterpoint to Vietnam, race riots and assassinations. But, it couldn’t hide that Nixon got us basically nothing better than we could have had four or five years earlier on Vietnam. Nor did his basking in the glow of Apollo success put his paranoiac mind at political rest.
And, as people like Buzz Aldrin push — very prematurely in terms of technology and safety issues — for a manned voyage to Mars, the triumph of Apollo 11 couldn’t erase questions of whether all that spending was worth it.
It wasn’t just a question about whether any technological advantage offset the costs.
It was whether, given Vietnam and other issues, whether alleged psychological advantage of victory over the USSR wasn’t a hollow shell, or the dregs of bitterness.
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