Carrying the Fire

Ah, Houston! Even today the name has a magical, lyrical ring. I can’t imagine calling from the moon with, ‘Say, Minneapolis, we have a problem up here’ or ‘Salt Lake City, this is Astonisher 19, do you read?’ No, Houston it had to be, and any blemishes the place had were certainly invisible as far as I was concerned. I checked into the Rice Hotel as if entering the pearly gates. NASA had instructed me to use a fictitious name, which added a tantalizing overlay of mystery to my already exciting mission.

Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much a part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.

I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the earth abruptly off at the instant I disappear behind the moon. I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only what on this side. I feel this powerfully – not as fear or loneliness – but as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling. Outside my window I can see stars – and that is all. Where I know the moon to be, there is simply a black void, the moon’s presence is defined solely by the absences of stars.

If I could use only one word to describe the earth as seen from the moon, I would ignore both its size and colour and search for a more elemental quality, that of fragility. The earth appears ‘fragile,’ above all else. I don’t know why, but it does. As we walk its surface, it seems solid and substantial enough, almost infinite as it extends flatly in all directions. But from space there is no hint of ruggedness to it; smooth as a billiard ball, it seems delicately poised in its circular journey around the sun, and above all it seems fragile.

[...]

We rush about like busy ants, bringing immense quantities of subsurface solids, liquids, and gases up from their hiding places, and converting them into quickly discarded solids, liquids, and waste gases which lie on or just above the surface as unholy evidence of our collective insanity. The entropy of the planet, its unavailable energy, is increasing at an alarming rate; the burning of fossil fuels is an irreversible process and can only be slowed down. At the same time, the sun shines on us whether we like it or not; yet we are making but feeble efforts to focus this energy for our use. For that matter, the sun’s energy, which is produced by converting hydrogen into helium, can probably be duplicated by creating our own little thermonuclear reactors here on earth, if we put every effort into the attempt. These problems and their solutions are becoming increasingly well known and I’m sure would have been recognized had there been no space program. Anyone who has viewed our planet from afar can only cry out in pain at the knowledge that the pristine blue and whiteness he can still close his eyes and see is an illusion masking an ever more senseless ugliness below. The beauty of the planet from 100,000 miles should be a goal for all of us, to help in our struggle to make it as it appears to be.