One small step back to where we started
The Apollo missions were supposed to reveal the truth about the Moon. In fact, they taught us about the Earth – and ourselves
In July 1969, soon after their return from the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were shown footage of the world’s reaction to the lunar landing. They saw the US newscaster Walter Cronkite wiping away his tears; people gathered around televisions from China to Brazil; pavements outside TV shops crammed as people watched in awe. Aldrin turned to Armstrong. “Neil,” he said, “we missed the whole thing”.
That comment (reminiscent of George Harrison’s complaint that the Beatles felt left out because “We were the only people who never got to see the Beatles”) reveals the surprising truth about the Apollo missions they weren’t about the Moon. They were about the Earth.
The clues had been there from the start, when the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to leave their home planet’s orbit. Orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968, fulfilling dreams as old as mankind itself, their real wonder was not at the dead grey planet beneath them, but at the vibrant blue globe in the distance. The first three men to see the Moon up close soon realised — with a much deeper sense of reverence — that they were the first three men to see the Earth from a distance. Witnessing an earthrise made them feel humble. They read the opening chapters of Genesis to a worldwide audience of millions, signing off with, “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
Over the next four years, Apollo taught us what it means to be human in a word, restless. Curiosity is never satisfied, it merely finds new targets. Quite how quickly the shift can occur was learnt by Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon (and the first to fall over on it). Once Armstrong and Aldrin had claimed the prize, no one was interested in Apollo 12. Conrad later appeared in an American Express advert of famous Americans nobody recognised. (Others included Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny.) Yet in many ways Conrad’s was the most interesting Apollo mission of all. His fellow moonwalker, Al Bean, never the most naturally gifted astronaut, compensated with sheer hard work. Finally standing on the lunar surface, he threw his silver Nasa badge into the distance, knowing that the moonwalk had earned him a gold one. But as they flew back to Earth, he turned to Conrad and admitted disappointment in the Moon itself “It’s kind of like the song Is That All There Is” Another timeless truth achievements themselves aren’t what count, it’s the fact that you worked for them.
When Bean returned to Earth he would sit in shopping malls, simply to marvel at the variety of human life. And he has never again complained about the weather “I’m just glad there is weather.” As so often, a journey into the unknown had revealed more about the traveller’s home than about the destination.
Virtually every Apollo astronaut came back with a deep sense of the Earth’s fragility. Ed Mitchell, Moonwalker No 6 “When we see ourselves in this bigger perspective — call it the ET point of view, the God point of view — a shift takes place in your perception and you start to think quite differently.” Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke describes Earth as “hanging in space like a jewel”. “People are always asking what we discovered when we went to the Moon,” says Dick Gordon, of Apollo 12. “What we discovered was the Earth.”
The discovery gave a big boost to the nascent Green movement. Sir Jonathon Porritt cites the “deep and lasting effect” that Apollo had on “many environmentalists — including me”. Friends of the Earth was founded in the same year that man first walked on the Moon. The inaugural Earth Day happened a year later. Everyone seemed to agree with Michael Collins’s thought as he splashed back down into the Pacific with Armstrong and Aldrin “Nice ocean you got here, planet Earth.”
Politically, too, there was a shift. The Earth from space looks just like a map — except without the national borders. Collins remembers people of every nation saying to him, “‘We did it’ — it was a wonderful thing.” Ed Mitchell, on his way back from the Moon, realised that “the molecules of my body and of the spacecraft and of my partners were manufactured in some ancient generation of stars — and that was an overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness”. Inspired by the landings, René Dubos coined the phrase “Think globally, act locally”. T minus zero for Apollo was T plus one for globalisation.
Yet despite the astronauts’ protestations that the Moon itself was a letdown, which of us, given the chance, wouldn’t want to go there The Chinese are planning missions of their own, and the commercial investment being ploughed into space tourism proves just how much we yearn for new experiences. So much so that we resent anyone who dampens our excitement.
Pete Conrad used to say he was prouder of his work on the Skylab missions than his walk on the Moon. “Some people even get mad,” he said. “‘What do you mean, the Moon isn’t the biggest thing in your life’ I say ‘Well, it isn’t’. They think, ‘Well, it should be’. I say ‘Why I’m the guy that did this’.” Maybe life is one long “wet paint” sign you don’t believe it until you reach out and touch.
Certainly, Dave Scott, of Apollo 15, thought so. Standing on the Moon, he voiced his thoughts to Houston “I realise there’s a fundamental truth to our nature man must explore.” Home is never far from our thoughts, though. How many times have you looked forward for months to a holiday, only to find that on day three you’re already dreaming of your own bed But when you return, the process starts all over again. This idea of life as a perpetual cycle seems particularly comforting in a recession. Even though we’ve overreached (and overborrowed), and been reminded of some home truths, we know that one day we’ll reach out once more.
When Bean retired from Nasa he became an artist. His paintings of the lunar landscape, which fetch tens of thousands of dollars, bear the lessons of his time as an astronaut. Just as he worked hard to reach the Moon, now he works hard to perfect his painting. “That’s what I tell myself when the colours don’t come out right or it hasn’t worked like I thought it would ‘That’s why they call it art’."
Another of Bean’s thoughts sums up the very essence of the Apollo missions, indeed of all human travel that it isn’t about where you’re going, it’s about who you are. “Everybody came back just more like I knew them. I think maybe success doesn’t change you as much as reveal you.”
Which is why the greatest reason to celebrate this 40th anniversary isn’t scientific or environmental or political; it’s personal. The next time you go down a footpath just to see where it leads, or when the only thing that will stop your baby crying is taking it for a drive, remember the 12 men who stood on the Moon and looked at Earth. As T. S. Eliot put it
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
出处：http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/2009-08/19/content_12020590_5.htm |
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